News, information and commentary related to religion... at times not so clearly.

July 23, 2015

• Is this the end of Christianity in the Middle East? … [NYTimes Magazine, Eliza Griswold, July 22] ISIS and other extremist movements across the region are enslaving, killing and uprooting Christians, with no aid in sight. Most of Iraq’s Christians call themselves Assyrians, Chaldeans or Syriac, different names for a common ethnicity rooted in the Mesopotamian kingdoms that flourished between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers thousands of years before Jesus. Christianity arrived during the first century, according to Eusebius, an early church historian who claimed to have translated letters between Jesus and a Mesopotamian king. Tradition holds that Thomas, one of the Twelve Apostles, sent Thaddeus, an early Jewish convert, to Mesopotamia to preach the Gospel. Read on. Bill: Author Eliza Griswold is the daughter of Phoebe Griswold and the 25th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Frank Griswold. She is the author of The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam.• Sea level may rise much faster than previously predicted … [Kottke] James Hansen, NASA's former top climate scientist, is joined by 16 other leading climate scientists in a paper with some alarming conclusions. The gist is that the glaciers in Antartica and Greenland are melting so much faster than previously predicted that the global sea level will rise more than 10 feet in as little as 50 years, rendering many coastal cities uninhabitable. The thing about nonlinear systems like the Earth's climate is that things happen gradually, then suddenly. This is much more terrifying to me than the Pacific Northwest earthquake. BTW, as a reminder, here's what NYC and the surrounding area looks like with 10 more feet of water. Goodbye JFK Airport. [h/t Dr. Stephen Lewellis]

• US approval rates for Pope Francis slump sharply, led by conservative dismay … [RNS, David Gibson, July 22] Growing conservative disaffection with Pope Francis appears to be taking a toll on his once Teflon-grade popularity in the U.S., with a new Gallup poll showing the pontiff’s favorability rating among all Americans dropping to 59 percent from a 76 percent peak early last year. Among conservatives, the drop-off has been especially sharp: Just 45 percent view Francis favorably today, as opposed to 72 percent a year ago. “This decline may be attributable to the pope’s denouncing of ‘the idolatry of money’ and attributing climate change partially to human activity, along with his passionate focus on income inequality — al issues that are at odds with many conservatives’ beliefs,” Gallup analyst Art Swift wrote Wednesday (July 22) when the survey was published. Read on. See also the WaPo story by Michelle Boorstein.

• Emergency Safety Net Effort … Dave and Kathy Leber, longtime members of St. Margaret's Emmaus, are co-founders of an effort (1) to encourage individuals, corporations and foundations to provide emergency funds directly to charitable and religious organizations that are equipped to help folks in emergency situations; (2) to assist a limited number of these organizations directly to help them raise funds from their present and potential donor bases; (3) to promote efforts via their website, other internet facilities and traditional media outlets. This Emergency Safety Net Effort will not accept any funds directly, but will assist donors to select an appropriate charity equipped to handle emergency safety net needs. More info is available at http://www.safetyneteffort.com/ or by calling 888-976-6889. You will notice on the website that Trinity Soup Kitchen in Bethlehem is one of the nonprofits affiliated with this effort.

• What poverty problem? Everyone I know has money … [Pacific Standard, Tom Jacobs, July 22] There are good reasons why wealthy people are often reluctant to support policies, and political parties, that aim to distribute wealth more widely. For one thing, it isn't in their short-term self-interest (as their taxes would likely rise). For another, it goes against the conservative ideology many of them hold (which equates poverty with laziness or a lack of moral character). Newly published research has identified yet another, even more basic explanation of why, in spite of the disturbing rise in income inequality, they tend to support the status quo. Their friends and acquaintances tend to inhabit the same economic strata as themselves, so a quick survey of their social circles suggests everything is just fine. Read on.

• Jesus didn't know everything … [Pacific Standard, Brandon Ambrosino, July 22]The best Christian argument for marriage equality Is that the Bible got it wrong. Christians need to accept that Jesus was sometimes wrong—in fact, he might even want us to. “Jesus said it, I believe it, that settles it” is a facile mode of Christian logic, and I’d argue that rejecting this logic is actually in line with orthodox Christianity. And I say this as a devout gay Christian who confesses both the divinity of Jesus and the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. Read on.

DioBeth[• New item •• Repeat]•• DioBeth Leadership News, July 2 … Here• Diocesan e-Newsletter, July 16 … Here•• Look online … for the Diocese of Bethlehem Facebook Page, Facebook Group (Bethlehem Episcopalians) and Twitter feed.•• Bethlehem Episcopalians … is a Facebook group for conversations about mission, spirituality, Christian formation, and more. It has replaced the Bakery email list. "Bethlehem Episcopalians is an open group," wrote Archdeacon Rick Cluett, "which means that anyone can join and items that you post can be shared by group members on their own Facebook pages. This offers each of us the opportunity to reach a larger audience with news and conversations about what God is doing in our diocese." Join the Facebook group, which, as of July 9, includes nearly 300 members.

•• Look online for a Diocese of Bethlehem newsletter every Thursday … [Bill] One or another newsletter is published every Thursday in the following order: (1) The Leadership News, (2) The newSpin newsletter, (3) TheDiocesan e-Newsletter, (4) ThenewSpin newsletter. The Leadership News and the Diocesan e-Newsletter are official publications of the Diocese of Bethlehem. They include news, info, features and events relating to our diocese and parishes. Find the most recent Diocesan e-Newsletter, July 16, here. Find the most recent Leadership News, July 2, here. The newSpin newsletter is not an official publication – and will usually not duplicate news, info and features relating to our diocese and parishes found in the official newsletters. It is a relatively lengthy eclectic sampling of items related to religion – at times not, at times not so clearly – that the editor thinks readers might find to be of interest. It has been a kind of hobby of a onetime communication minister, the work of a volunteer who in retirement enjoys and dedicates time to do the research required. I always post the newSpin newsletter on the newSpin blog. If you wish to receive it by email, please send a note to Jo Trepagnier, jo@diobeth.org.

•• Education for Ministry groups … [Cathy Bailey] are forming now for meetings in September. Groups will be meeting in Bethlehem, Whitehall, and Reading. EfM is a 4 year program studying the Old and New Testaments, Christian History and theology. We meet weekly from September through May. Contact Cathy Bailey cbnnp@rcn.com for more information.

The stunning vote of the Irish to legalize same-sex marriage will be taken as one more indication (along with the legalization of divorce and homosexual behavior and abortion if the mother’s life is at risk, plus the decline in Mass attendance and priestly vocations) of the collapse of the Catholic Church in a country where it once bestrode the sod like a colossus. Such would appear to be the wages of a rolling sexual abuse scandal, particularly acute because of the church’s control of public education, and the ugly history of its abusive homes for wayward boys and girls.

But for all that, Ireland remains a country where over 70 percent of the population identifies as Catholic, where a higher proportion of Catholics go to Mass than in the U.S., where the divorce rate is low. And yet, every Irish political party supported the referendum and the citizenry voted in favor by a 62-38 margin. What gives?

- See more at: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2015/05/23/irish-catholicism-supports-same-sex-marriage/#sthash.c6vMYDqD.dpuf

Episcopal/Anglican[• New item •• Repeat]•• General Convention wrap-up … [ENS] The 78th General Convention, in a series of historic moments, elected the first African-American presiding bishop; approved marriage equality for all Episcopalians; adopted a budget that emphasizes racial reconciliation and evangelism; endorsed the study of fossil fuel divestment; opposed divestment in Israel, Palestine; and made some significant changes to the church’s governance. Read on.

• What difference are women bishops making in the CofE? … [BBC, Caroline Wyatt, July 22]At least six women have now shattered what was known as the "stained glass ceiling" by becoming bishops. The majority are married to other members of the clergy, and one - Alison White - became the first to be married to another bishop, Frank. Christina Rees campaigned for women's ordination during almost a quarter of a century as a lay member of the general synod, the governing body of the Church. Like many, she's thrilled that Rachel Treweek will become the first woman to sit in the House of Lords as part of the Lords Spiritual: a woman on the front bench of the Church."Even though I don't like to stereotype women, I think women hold power more lightly," she says. "They have a better way of working through issues - they're less confrontational. So what I hope is that we'll see a more realistic House of Bishops, more in tune with reality and real people, and one that will be more accessible and a little less distant." Read on.

• God's management consultants: the Church of England turns to bankers for salvation … [The Spectator, Mark Greaves, July 18] A new mood has taken hold of Lambeth Palace. Officials call it urgency; critics say it is panic. The Church of England, the thinking goes, is about to shrink rapidly, even vanish in some areas, unless urgent action is taken. This action, laid out in a flurry of high-level reports, amounts to the biggest institutional shake-up since the 1990s. Red tape is to be cut, processes streamlined, resources optimised. Targets have been set. The Church is ill — and business management is going to cure it.Reformers say they are only removing obstacles that hinder the Church from growing. Opponents, appalled by the business-speak of some of the reports, object to what they see as a ruthless focus on filling pews. Read on.

• Resources … way below.

SpiritSpin[• New item •• Repeat]• Introverts can tell us about this … "Language," Paul Tillich wrote, "has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone." [Via Joan D. Chittister, in her book, "Between the Dark and the Daylight: Embracing the Contradictions of Life"]

• Spirit Resources ... way below.

Columns, Sermons, Reflections and other Spin[• New item •• Repeat]•• Your sermon? … If you have a sermon you might like uploaded to the newSpin blog and linked to from the newSpin newsletter, point bill.lewellis@gmail.com to it online or send it to him as an attached file.

Where Religion, Culture and Politics Might Intersect[• New item •• Repeat]• Why we can applaud the Iran deal in good faith … [WaPo Op-Ed, Cardinal McCarrick, July 16 ] What an enormous possibility! Thank God we have not let this chance go by. Read on.

At its heart, the Greek crisis is about the moral economy, not the financial one. The Eurocrats want the Greeks to admit they are wastrels who deserve to suffer. The Greeks want the Eurocrats to admit they are Scrooges who like making them suffer.

They may both be right, but behind the moral standoff is a difference in approaches to human error that has divided Eastern and Western Christianity for centuries. It’s the difference between the Orthodox idea of economia and the Augustinian conviction that either it’s right or God brings the hammer down.

- See more at: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2015/07/09/the-moral-theology-of-the-greek-crisis/#sthash.gkayofZc.dpuf

In the Media[• New item •• Repeat]• Q&A with Bishop Nick Knisely … [WPRI.com] Onetime rector of Trinity Bethlehem, Bishop Nicholas Knisely of the Episcopal Church of Rhode Island spoke with Eyewitness News there in a brief Q&A about the General Convention. Here.

Rest in Peace[• New item •• Repeat]• Paul Lioy, 68 … [NYTimes] an environmental scientist widely known for his analysis of the dust spawned by the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and for his studies of its health effects over time, died July 8 after collapsing at Newark Liberty International Airport. Read on.

•• The obituary as a cautionary tale … [Legacy.com] When 22-year-old Clay William Shephard died May 17, 2015, his parents chose to share the story of his drug addiction with the world. Handsome and talented, Clay seemed to have it all; he was known for his broad smile and generous nature. (He spent his time, for instance, volunteering with his father at Carolina Tiger Rescue.) But drugs held a power over him that he couldn't shake. He was able to hide the worst of his addiction from his parents, preventing them from helping him before it was too late. In the obituary they wrote, Shephard's parents offered advice to parents and children alike in an attempt to stop such a tragedy from happening to anyone else: "To all children, this note is a simple reminder that there are people who love you, with everything they have and no matter what you do – don't be too afraid/ashamed/scared, too anything, to ask for help. To all parents, pay attention to your children and the world that revolves around them – even when the surface is calm, the water may be turbulent just beneath." It's one of a growing number of obituaries that spell out the tragic decisions made by loved ones in hopes that they can stop others before it's too late. Read on. Also, Obituaries shed euphemisms to chronicle toll of heroin … When George P. Gauthier died of an opiate overdose in May at 44, his sister, Cindy Gauthier-Rivera, wrote an obituary that was more like a cry from the heart. Read on.

When 22-year-old Clay William Shephard died May 17, 2015, his parents chose to share the story of his drug addiction with the world. Handsome and talented, Clay seemed to have it all; he was known for his broad smile and generous nature. (He spent his time, for instance, volunteering with his father at Carolina Tiger Rescue.) But drugs held a power over him that he couldn't shake. He was able to hide the worst of his addiction from his parents, preventing them from helping him before it was too late. In the obituary they wrote, Shephard's parents offered advice to parents and children alike in an attempt to stop such a tragedy from happening to anyone else: "To all children, this note is a simple reminder that there are people who love you, with everything they have and no matter what you do – don't be too afraid/ashamed/scared, too anything, to ask for help. To all parents, pay attention to your children and the world that revolves around them – even when the surface is calm, the water may be turbulent just beneath." It's one of a growing number of obituaries that spell out the tragic decisions made by loved ones in hopes that they can stop others before it's too late. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/news/in-the-news/the-obituary-as-a-cautionary-tale/3252/#sthash.29YeHL9P.dpuf

TaleSpin[• New item •• Repeat]• They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds … [HuffPost] Read Bishop Gene Robinson's column to discover the ancient Greek origin of these two sentences and how they continue to be used.• Higher calling, lower wages: the vanishing of the middle-class clergy … [The Atlantic, July 22] Working two jobs has become so common for clergy members, in fact, that churches and seminaries have a euphemistic term for it: bi-vocational ministry. Working multiple jobs is nothing new to pastors of small, rural congregations. But many of those pastors never went to seminary and never expected to have a full-time ministerial job in the first place. What’s new is the across-the-board increase in bi-vocational ministry in Protestant denominations both large and small, which has effectively shut down one pathway to a stable—if humble—middle-class career. For example, the Episcopal Church hasreported that the retirement rate of its clergy exceeds the ordination rate by 43 percent. And last year, an article from an official publication of the Presbyterian Church wondered if full-time pastors are becoming an "endangered species." This trend prompted the Religion News Service to report that, in the future, clergy should expect to earn their livings from "secular" jobs. Read on.

BackSpin – Do you remember?• The Church always loses whenever part of it tries to win … [Bill, To David Kalvelage, Editor, The Living Church, Oct. 31. 1990] Dear David, Your article, Bishops Disassociate from Newark Ordination, TLC, Oct. 14, 1990, summarized the 90-minue debate before the 78-74 vote on the resolution submitted by Wiliam Wantland, Bishop of Eau Claire. You quoted Mark Dyer, Bishop of Bethlehem as follows: "I believe the Anglican way of discipline is by compassion, not law. I suggest we do nothing."

You stopped short of saying that nothing in this instance meant not voting on the Wantland resolution. The October edition of The Episcopal News of Los Angeles caught Dyer's intention and quoted the conclusion of his intervention: "This resolution doesn't help us seek the deepest level of communion with each other."

Controversy can be approached with a win-lose mindset or with intent to "seek the deepest level of communion." I work l closely enough with Mark Dyer to know that he feels the Church always loses whenever part of it tries to win.

The bishops miss the apostolic boat when they send messages that being church is mainly about being good (morality) or being right (doctrine) rather than about being one, proclaiming God's Good News, and doing mission. How did Jesus say it? "Seek first the kingdom …"

"We must be especially boring to God." Dyer wrote last year, "when we care more about being right than about being compassionate. Divisiveness is the result of our obsession with being right. Jesus' prayer for his disciples at the Last Supper was not that they be right. He prayed that they be one."

He continued, perhaps prophetically: "In God's world, truth is discovered in communion. Though sin may be the foremost obstacle to truth, our lack of will to maintain the highest possible degree of unity with one another –– especially during disagreement –– is sin's enforcer. Truth is rarely served by removing ourselves or excluding others from the table. Only in union will we discern rumors of angels and the Spirit of Truth."

The bishops would do well to stay at this center and seek first the kingdom, rather than peck at the periphery with messages that ring 78-74 clear. Sincerely, Bill Lewellis, Communication Minister, Diocese of Bethlehem.

Ecumenism, Interfaith, Pluralism – or Not• Franklin Graham's turn toward intolerance … [The Atlantic, Jonathan Merritt] One should expect that parents would lose their minds long before their children. But in the case of the famed evangelist Billy Graham’s son, Franklin, it may be the other way around. In a post on his Facebook page this past Friday, the younger Graham proclaimed that all Muslims should be barred from immigrating to America and treated like the Japanese and Germans during World War II. Muslims who come to America have the “potential to be radicalized” and participate in “killing to honor their religion and Muhammad,” he said in response to the murders of four Marines in Chattanooga on Thursday. This is only the latest disturbing comment from Franklin Graham, a man whose rhetoric seems to be growing more extreme and whose behavior seems to be growing more erratic. The son of America’s most prominent evangelist was once known as a leading humanitarian, but he has now traded that legacy for a pot of partisan porridge. Read on.

• Why India’s religious rituals too often end in deadly mass stampedes … [WaPo, July 15, Lindsey Bever] When the gates to India’s Godavari Pushkar Ghat in Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh swung open early Tuesday morning, some 5,000 pilgrims rushed in. They were there for a 12-day Hindu religious bathing ceremony called Godavari Maha Pushkaram, convinced a dip in the water would wash away their sins. In the surge of humanity, some pilgrims lost their shoes and, when they fought the crowd to retrieve them, they triggered a deadly stampede — the kind that has devastated the country throughout the years … When the crowd died down, at least 27 people were left dead and more than 60 injured … Such stampedes, particularly at places of pilgrimage, have plagued India for years, so much so that despite the vast number of lives they claim, they receive little notice outside the country. Read on. Warning: This story includes graphic images.

Evangelical Lutheran Church ELCA website ... Here. ELCA News Service ... Here. ELCA's blogs may be found here. See especially "Web and Multimedia Development."Spirit Spinning ... for those who hunger and thirst for a deeper connection with God ... Here.

Roman Catholic• Go beyond a foot-stomping 'no' … [NCR Editorial] Reflective of swiftly changing social attitudes and anchored in the language and rationale of civil rights, the U.S. Supreme Court's June 26 decision makes same-sex marriage constitutional throughout the land. In a jolting shift in reality, the court said the term marriage in the civil realm can no longer apply exclusively to heterosexual couples. Over the long arc of human history, the recent acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual unions is easily perceived on one level as a disorienting, even severe, realignment of the social order. In another way, however, this broad new acceptance may be as transformative in its own way of our understanding of something deeply personal and mysterious as recent explorations have been transformative of our understanding, in equally jarring ways, of an infinitely vast and endlessly mystifying universe. In each case, old certainties that once comfortably contained our presumptions are shattered. Even those who marvel at or celebrate such new realities might, at the same time, find them unsettling. The Catholic church, which has used some of the most severe language of major denominations in its condemnation of homosexuality, labeling those with a homosexual orientation "intrinsically disordered," is especially challenged by the ruling. At least its leaders are, for it has become clear in recent years that when it comes to believers, Catholics are among the most accepting of homosexuality. In terms of same-sex marriage, according to recent Pew Research polling, "Among Catholics and white mainline Protestants, roughly six-in-ten now express support for same-sex marriage." Read on.

• Pope Francis has chosen social media star Robert Barron for Los Angeles auxiliary bishop … [WaPo, Sarah Pulliam Bailey, July 21] Pope Francis has named Chicago priest Robert Barron one of three new assistant bishops of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, a move some insiders are calling noteworthy because of his wide social media presence. Barron is well known among church-going Catholics, since his video series on Catholicism is regularly shown in churches across the U.S. His appointment is both surprising and not surprising, said James Martin, editor at large of America magazine. “It’s surprising because bishops aren’t normally people who are so media savvy,” Martin said. “But given his talent and profile, I thought this was just a matter of time.” Read on.

• Proud to be a cafeteria Catholic … [Isabella R. Moyer, U.S.Catholic, July 21] Today, the accusation of being a “cafeteria Catholic” is flung around with the same zealousness as the term “heretic” was at one time. … I once found great comfort in the black-and-white world of apologetics. The Catechism of the Catholic Church provided the answers to all of my questions concerning faith and morals. It was the definitive voice of the church, and I believed everything that voice said. And then my black-and-white world began to fall apart. Read on.

I once found great comfort in the black-and-white world of apologetics. The Catechism of the Catholic Church provided the answers to all of my questions concerning faith and morals. It was the definitive voice of the church, and I believed everything that vo - See more at: http://www.uscatholic.org/articles/201507/proud-be-cafeteria-catholic-30253#sthash.JW9Ax5dZ.dpuf

The Vatican• Reframing the question about Pope Francis’ trip to America … [CRUX, John L. Allen Jr., July 16]A break-the-mold pope, the first ever from his part of the world, is preparing for a keenly anticipated visit to the United States. He comes amid perceptions that he may not be fully sold on America, and America may not be fully sold on him. He’s got astronomic approval ratings and is a media icon, but there are also unmistakable signals that he sees the United States as part of the problem as much as the solution. Many of the pope’s leading critics are Americans, inside and outside the Church, and his friends have warned him he may be in for a bumpy ride. Read on.• On Pope Francis' landmark eight-day visit to South America … [Tablet, Margaret Hebblethwaite, July 16]Here.

BookSpin• Before C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien: The surprising faith of the author behind Alice in Wonderland … [WaPo, Karen Swallow Prior, July 17] The 150th anniversary of “Alice in Wonderland” has been widely celebrated this year, but it is odd, a recent essay at the New Yorker notes, that how seldom the religion of its author, Lewis Carroll, is considered. The scant attention given to Carroll’s Christian faith is particularly striking since he is, in many ways, the direct predecessor of authors C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, who are practically Protestant saints in literary circles. Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll was Dodgson’s pen name) was a committed, lifelong member of the Church of England. Although he balked at taking Holy Orders, he was ordained as a deacon in the church in 1861. Although Dodgson hardly beat his readers over the head with his Christian beliefs, whispers of the glory of God echo throughout his work. Read on.

• Resources … below.

Media/Films/TV/Music/Tech• Resources … below.

VariaSpin• Learn about opening an online Social Security account … [USA.gov] Even if you’re nowhere near retirement, having an account will help you track your earnings, give you quicker access to manage the benefits you may be receiving, and much more. If you’re interested in learning more about how to open an account, this video walks you through the step-by-step process of setting one up. Read on.

• Basic guides to managing money … [USA.gov] Throughout the United States, people unfamiliar with our financial marketplace are more likely to fall prey to frauds and schemes. Low English literacy can make it even harder to manage money safely and effectively on a day-to-day basis. To help, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) developed a series of guides that provide information about various money matters. The following are among the topics the guides cover: • How to open a bank account • How to pay bills • How to shop for a mortgage • How to select financial services and products • Information on how to submit a complaint about a problem with a financial product or service. Read and share the Newcomer’s Guides to Managing Money; also available in Chinese, French, Haitian-Creole, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese. You can also order hard copies directly from this page.

Resources

DioBeth• Look for a Diocese of Bethlehem newsletter every Thursday … One or another newsletter is published every Thursday in the following order: (1) The Leadership News, (2) The newSpin newsletter, (3) The Diocesan e-Newsletter, (4) The newSpin newsletter.The Leadership News and the Diocesan e-Newsletter are official publications of the Diocese of Bethlehem. They include news, info, features and events relating to our diocese and parishes. Find the most recent Diocesan e-Newsletter, June 4, here. Find the most recent Leadership News, May 7, here.The newSpin newsletter is not an official publication – and will usually not duplicate news, info and features relating to our diocese and parishes found in the official newsletters. It is a relatively lengthy eclectic sampling of items related to religion – at times not, at times not so clearly – that the editor thinks readers might find to be of interest. It has been a kind of hobby of a onetime communication minister, the work of a volunteer who in retirement enjoys and dedicates time to do the research required. I always post the newSpin newsletter on the newSpin blog. If you wish to receive it by email, please send a note to Jo Trepagnier, jo@diobeth.org.

• Bethlehem Episcopalians … is a new Facebook group for conversations about mission, spirituality, Christian formation, and more. It was launched a few weeks ago and will replace the Bakery email list which has been taken down. "Bethlehem Episcopalians is an open group," wrote Archdeacon Rick Cluett, "which means that anyone can join and items that you post can be shared by group members on their own Facebook pages. This offers each of us the opportunity to reach a larger audience with news and conversations about what God is doing in our diocese." Join the Facebook group.• DioBeth website• Stumbling into the Sacred ... [Reflections on seeing God in the everyday by Canon Anne E. Kitch]• newSpin blog ... including the newSpin weekly by Bill Lewellis.• Facebook Page …• Facebook Group … Bethlehem Episcopalians• Twitter …• Flickr• YouTube• Vimeo• LinkedIn

Franklin Graham had a revelation. On Friday, Graham said it has “dawned” on him on how to “fight the tide of moral decay that is being crammed down our throats by big business, the media, and the gay & lesbian community.”

- See more at: http://elielcruz.religionnews.com/2015/06/07/franklin-graham-calls-on-christians-to-blacklist-lgbt-friendly-companies/?email=blewellis%40diobeth.org#sthash.WI32aUeD.dpuf

SpiritSpin• The Book of Common Prayer ... every edition from 1549 to 1979. Here.• Prayers and Thanksgivings from the BCP ... Here.• The (Online) Book of Common Prayer ... Here.• The Daily Office ... can be read online in Rite I, Rite II or the New Zealand Prayer Book versions. At Mission St. Clare.• The Daily Office ... from the Diocese of Indianapolis. Here.• Daily Prayer ... a resource of Forward Movement. Here.• Holy Women, Holy Men ... Download Holy Women, Holy Men as a .pdf file.• Speaking to the Soul ... An Episcopal Café blog. Sermons, reflections, multimedia meditations and excerpts from books on spirituality. Here.• The Imitation of Christ ... Available free online.

Evangelism/Stewardship/Church Growth• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.

Media/Film/TV/Books/Podcasts/Music/Tech• Spirituality & Film ... Here.• Spirituality on DVD ... Here.• Books for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Audios for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Free eBooks by Project Gutenberg ... Here. • Free Audiobooks from LibriVox ... Here. • Free Audiobooks and eBooks ... Here and Here. • Google Books ... Millions of books you can preview or read free. Here. • The Online Books Page ... from UPenn. Here.• More free eBooks and Audiobooks ... [Techlicious] Here.• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told about your congregation, it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.• Communicate … Your Ministry, including Bill's Communication Biases and Communication-Evangelism. Here.

Religious Freedom Recap, our weekly look back at the top stories and developments on religious liberty around the world. - See more at: http://brianpellot.religionnews.com/2013/09/16/burkini-compromise-pope-hearts-atheists-dozen-muslim-march-religious-freedom-recap-sept-9-sept-16/#sthash.nA6J6Y1Y.dpuf

******************The newSpin newsletter is uploaded to the newSpin blog and posted on Bakery and on other diocesan lists of some 2,000 addresses. Many recipients forward it to others. It comes, of course, with some spin from the editor. The views expressed, implied or inferred in items or links contained in the newsletter or the blog do not represent the official view of the Diocese of Bethlehem unless expressed by or forwarded from the Bishop, the Standing Committee or the Archdeacon as an official communication. Comments are welcome on Bakery (if you are subscribed to that interactive list) and at the newSpin blog. At the newSpin blog, click in the right hand column on the title of the current newsletter. Then, make your comment below.

July 09, 2015

• Bishop Sean: I am preparing to leave General Convention with great hope for the Episcopal Church … [Bishop Sean] We have passed a budget with substantial investments in evangelism and church planting, we have made a major commitment to the work of racial reconciliation, and we have elected the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, a dynamic preacher and powerful evangelist, as our next presiding bishop. Bishop Curry will be the first African American person to lead the Episcopal Church, and the news of his election was reported and celebrated around the world. I am eager to work with him over the next nine years. While we were gathered at General Convention, the Supreme Court of the United States made marriage equality the law of the land. While this does not change the law in Pennsylvania, where we have enjoyed marriage equality since last spring, it does bring about long-sought legal equality for our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) sisters and brothers. Just a few days later, both the House of Bishops and House of Deputies overwhelmingly approved two resolutions that bring liturgical marriage equality to all dioceses of the Episcopal Church beginning on the first Sunday in Advent. The canons of the church regarding marriage have been changed to be gender-neutral, and two trial liturgies have been approved. One is a gender-neutral version of the current marriage service in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and the other is a version of a liturgy called “The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant” that was first approved for blessing same-sex unions in 2012 and now can include vows of marriage. Bishops who object to same-sex marriage are not required to authorize these liturgies, but they are required to make provision with another bishop to do so for same-sex couples in their dioceses. As has always been the case, clergy will not be required to perform marriages that violate their consciences. Read on.

• General Convention wrap-up … [ENS] The 78th General Convention, in a series of historic moments, elected the first African-American presiding bishop; approved marriage equality for all Episcopalians; adopted a budget that emphasizes racial reconciliation and evangelism; endorsed the study of fossil fuel divestment; opposed divestment in Israel, Palestine; and made some significant changes to the church’s governance. Read on.

• Sermon by Presiding Bishop-elect Michael Curry at the conclusion of General Convention … Here.

• National Cathedral's repair work: Finials, Finance and Faith … [NYTimes, Nicholas Fandos, July 4] Washington — Its vaulted nave has been the site of presidential funerals and inaugural prayer services for almost a century. Woodrow Wilson is entombed here, as is Helen Keller. Outside, protruding from the intricate stonework of the building’s northwest tower, a limestone Darth Vader watches over the sprawling grounds. If the United States had a national church, this would be it. Established by congressional charter and perched on this city’s highest hill, the neo-Gothic Washington National Cathedral has long been a prominent fixture in the life of the nation’s political elite, who come for rituals of celebration and mourning. But these days, the scaffolding draped over the more-than-300-foot-tall tower and the fencing around much of its base tell a different story. Almost four years after a magnitude-5.8 earthquake shook the site — cracking finials and half a dozen flying buttresses and sending pieces of pinnacles tumbling hundreds of feet — the National Cathedral is struggling to piece itself back together, physically and financially, even as contractors put the finishing touches on the $10 million first phase of repairs to the interior... Now leaders at the National Cathedral and in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington say they need close to $200 million, on top of regular annual giving, to finish restoration and set the 83,000-square-foot cathedral, the seat of the American Episcopal Church, on stable financial footing. That figure is among the largest ever sought through a capital campaign at an American religious institution. Read on.

• 'My life was wasted and spent foolishly' … [WaPo] Notorious Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, an 85-year-old inmate currently serving out two life sentences for his role in 11 murders, recently penned a letter to some teenage girls from prison, telling them he wasted his life. “My life was wasted and spent foolishly, brought shame and suffering on my parents and siblings and will end soon,” he wrote. “Advice is a cheap commodity some seek it from me about crime. “I know only thing for sure — if you want to make crime pay — ‘go to law school.'” Read on.

DioBeth[• New item •• Repeat]• Look for a Diocese of Bethlehem newsletter every Thursday … [Bill] One or another newsletter is published every Thursday in the following order: (1) The Leadership News, (2) The newSpin newsletter, (3) TheDiocesan e-Newsletter, (4) ThenewSpin newsletter. The Leadership News and the Diocesan e-Newsletter are official publications of the Diocese of Bethlehem. They include news, info, features and events relating to our diocese and parishes. Find the most recent Diocesan e-Newsletter, June 4, here. Find the most recent Leadership News, July 2, here. The newSpin newsletter is not an official publication – and will usually not duplicate news, info and features relating to our diocese and parishes found in the official newsletters. It is a relatively lengthy eclectic sampling of items related to religion – at times not, at times not so clearly – that the editor thinks readers might find to be of interest. It has been a kind of hobby of a onetime communication minister, the work of a volunteer who in retirement enjoys and dedicates time to do the research required. I always post the newSpin newsletter on the newSpin blog. If you wish to receive it by email, please send a note to Jo Trepagnier, jo@diobeth.org.

• Education for Ministry groups … [Cathy Bailey] are forming now for meetings in September. Groups will be meeting in Bethlehem, Whitehall, and Reading. EfM is a 4 year program studying the Old and New Testaments, Christian History and theology. We meet weekly from September through May. Contact Cathy Bailey cbnnp@rcn.com for more information.

•• Bethlehem Episcopalians … is a Facebook group for conversations about mission, spirituality, Christian formation, and more. It has replaced the Bakery email list. "Bethlehem Episcopalians is an open group," wrote Archdeacon Rick Cluett, "which means that anyone can join and items that you post can be shared by group members on their own Facebook pages. This offers each of us the opportunity to reach a larger audience with news and conversations about what God is doing in our diocese." Join the Facebook group, which, as of July 9, includes nearly 300 members.

The stunning vote of the Irish to legalize same-sex marriage will be taken as one more indication (along with the legalization of divorce and homosexual behavior and abortion if the mother’s life is at risk, plus the decline in Mass attendance and priestly vocations) of the collapse of the Catholic Church in a country where it once bestrode the sod like a colossus. Such would appear to be the wages of a rolling sexual abuse scandal, particularly acute because of the church’s control of public education, and the ugly history of its abusive homes for wayward boys and girls.

But for all that, Ireland remains a country where over 70 percent of the population identifies as Catholic, where a higher proportion of Catholics go to Mass than in the U.S., where the divorce rate is low. And yet, every Irish political party supported the referendum and the citizenry voted in favor by a 62-38 margin. What gives?

- See more at: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2015/05/23/irish-catholicism-supports-same-sex-marriage/#sthash.c6vMYDqD.dpuf

Episcopal/Anglican[• New item •• Repeat]• General Convention wrap-up… See above.

• Presiding Bishop-elect Michael Curry … See above.

• Resources … way below.

SpiritSpin[• New item •• Repeat]• Goethe's Wish … [Killing the Buddha, Erin White]“I wish for you,” Goethe writes, “faith enough to make real the things of God.” For years after I left the Catholic Church this was my prayer. I imagined Goethe meant faith enough to make real the hills and rivers, the climbing pea shoots, the hungry child. My plain New England church. I believed in the aggregation of such places and sights, hoping I could collect my own attic of holy moments, so many that I wouldn’t need the Catholic Church, wouldn’t need those five o’clock Masses, those candles, those saints’ days. Those tethers, now cut, which had once tied me to God. I gave up on the idea of being touched again, gave up on the possibility of visions, of voices.But then Grace was in pain and my eyes were touched again, and the men did not look like trees. And I saw God everywhere. In the hospital waiting room I watched a father put a piece of pizza in front of his wheelchair-bound child and I saw the Eucharist. Grace floated in a gleaming steel hospital tub and fluttered her legs without pain, and I heard God say: Can you see the miracle of water? Can you see, once again, the bright curve of her future? … The power of my touch was fading, and I was relieved. I was on a cliff’s edge in the days of Grace’s illness, too close to the depths of anxiety and loss. And while God’s company was astonishing, I did not want to stay on that edge for a moment longer than I had to. I had never imaged that God’s touch would come so tangled up in terror. I had never imagined hating the hours in which I received miracles. My mistake was in thinking God’s touch was mine to beckon, its purpose mine to discern. Read on.

• Liberated by grace … [WaPo, E.J. Dionne Jr.] The African American Christian tradition has been vital in our history for reasons of the spirit but also as a political seedbed of freedom and a reminder that the Bible is a subversive book. Read on.

• Communication as a church ministry … [Bill] In February 2001, Michael Curry, then bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina now our newly-elected Presiding Bishop, invited me to speak at their diocesan convention banquet on experiences and ideas gathered (then over some 30 years) in church communication ministry in two dioceses: one Roman Catholic and one Episcopal. Monica and I were delighted to share a meal that evening with Bishop Curry, family and friends at his table. I began: "Yesterday morning, an old friend who had been comment pages editor for several major dailies, now retired and living on Lookout Mountain in Tennessee, heard that I was going to do this. He sent me a one-line email message: 'You’re a brave man to speak in Michael Curry’s diocese.' " The following, I told those gathered, was the 20-second version of what I would say: "A communication ministry that does not proclaim the gospel, however sophisticated that ministry may be, is not a Christian communication ministry. If 'glad tidings of redemption and release' is not the reason for our communication, what in the world are we communicating? Communication as a church ministry makes no sense unless it 'makes disciples in order to make a difference.' I hope to say that several times this evening in different ways… with a few stories and vignettes."

• Introverts especially can tell us about this … "Language," Paul Tillich wrote, "has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone." [Via Joan D. Chittister, in her book, "Between the Dark and the Daylight: Embracing the Contradictions of Life"]

• Spirit Resources ... way below.

Columns, Sermons, Reflections and other Spin[• New item •• Repeat]•• Your sermon? … If you have a sermon you might like uploaded to the newSpin blog and linked to from the newSpin newsletter, point bill.lewellis@gmail.com to it online or send it to him as an attached file.

•• Information is not wisdom … [Big Think] Given the age in which we live, it's easy to equate intelligence with access to information. And, of course, information is a big part of knowledge and intelligence, Kathleen Kelley Reardon writes at Big Think. But it is not wisdom.

Where Religion, Culture and Politics Might Intersect[• New item •• Repeat]• What are the limits of 'religious liberty'? … [NYTimes Magazine, Emily Bazelon, July 12] ‘‘I can’t. It’s against my religion.’’ Americans tend to handle religious objections with care, personally and politically. When a guest says, for example, that he can’t eat the food being served because it’s not kosher or halal, the host usually hastens to find an alternative. And when people resist following a law on the basis of faith, the government and the courts may try to accommodate them. It’s an American legacy that dates back to before the founding, when some of the original colonies were set up as havens for religious dissenters. Under the banner of belief, Quakers and Mennonites in the 18th century won the right not to join state militias. The first conscientious objectors were religious objectors, and from there, the category expanded to include moral opponents of war. The same pattern holds for home-schoolers. It was an Amish father, not a hippie mother, who first got the Supreme Court’s permission to take his children out of school in 1972, based on his religious commitment to ‘‘life aloof from the world,’’ as the justices respectfully put it. Read on.

• The moral theology of the Greek crisis … [RNS, Mark Silk] At its heart, the Greek crisis is about the moral economy, not the financial one. The Eurocrats want the Greeks to admit they are wastrels who deserve to suffer. The Greeks want the Eurocrats to admit they are Scrooges who like making them suffer. They may both be right, but behind the moral standoff is a difference in approaches to human error that has divided Eastern and Western Christianity for centuries. It’s the difference between the Orthodox idea of economia and the Augustinian conviction that either it’s right or God brings the hammer down. Read on.

At its heart, the Greek crisis is about the moral economy, not the financial one. The Eurocrats want the Greeks to admit they are wastrels who deserve to suffer. The Greeks want the Eurocrats to admit they are Scrooges who like making them suffer.

They may both be right, but behind the moral standoff is a difference in approaches to human error that has divided Eastern and Western Christianity for centuries. It’s the difference between the Orthodox idea of economia and the Augustinian conviction that either it’s right or God brings the hammer down.

- See more at: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2015/07/09/the-moral-theology-of-the-greek-crisis/#sthash.gkayofZc.dpuf

Evangelism/Stewardship/Worship/Church Growth[• New item •• Repeat]• A story told by our new Presiding Bishop-elect Michael Curry … [Diocese of Maine] Bishop Curry tells a story of two young African Americans in the 1940s. A young lady had joined an Episcopal Church. In time, she invited the young man she was dating to worship with her. He was a member of a different denomination and did not go up for communion with her. He was the only person in the church surprised when his girlfriend was offered the same common cup as everyone else in the otherwise white congregation. This sacrament of unity, the young man said, was something of which he wanted to be a part. He joined the church, married the young lady, and in time she gave birth to Michael Curry. [h/t Rick Cluett]• God or Google? Both … [The Rev. Jake Dell, the Episcopal Church's manager of digital marketing, The Living Church, June 11] We all do it. When looking for information, we use Google. It is no wonder, then, that when people have questions about God, many no longer turn to a priest, but instead search for answers online.What might this mean for the marketing that drives evangelism, membership in local churches, and discipleship? Is it possible to fish someone out of that vast Internet ocean, make a connection, and connect him or her with a local ministry? Can this be accomplished in a manner that is personal and scalable? Several staff members at the Episcopal Church Center decided to find out. Read on.

• Resources ... way below

In the Media[• New item •• Repeat]•• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.

Rest in Peace[• New item •• Repeat]• John B. Lovis, 80 … onetime trustee of the Diocese of Bethlehem and junior warden at the Cathedral Church of the Nativity, died on June 20. He was a member of First Presbyterian Church, Allentown. Find obituary here. Also, see Bill White column, Morning Call, Could Bethlehem Steel have been saved?

The Reverend William Kilmer Sites, aged 94, died Friday, May 8th at the Solder's Home in Holyoke, Massachusetts where he was a resident for the last several years. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/pressconnects/obituary.aspx?n=William-Kilmer-Sites&pid=174821810#sthash.Gephi9yD.dpufdied May 8 at the Solder's Home in Holyoke, Massachusetts where he was a resident for the last few years. Because he was brought up in a very racially divided and discriminatory atmosphere in rural Virginia, Kilmer actively supported the Civil Rights movement, and worked his whole life to improve conditions for those less fortunate than himself. Among other involvements, he traveled to Birmingham, Alabama to participate in freedom marches in June of 1962 and wrote a series of articles about those experiences for the local Sun Bulletin newspaper (Binghamton NY). He fervently disapproved of US involvement in the Viet Nam war and was both lauded and despised for advocating those antiwar views from the pulpit. He was never a hell fire and damnation preacher; rather he advocated care, compassion and proactive effort to fix problems and improve conditions for individuals and society as a whole.

He was an extraordinary man who led an extraordinary life. As was his long-time wish, his body has been given to a medical school to assist students in their studies. Plans for a memorial service will be announced at a later date. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/pressconnects/obituary.aspx?n=William-Kilmer-Sites&pid=174821810#sthash.Gephi9yD.KgPSJeOd.dpuf He was an extraordinary man who led an extraordinary life. As was his long-time wish, his body has been given to a medical school to assist students in their studies. Plans for a memorial service will be announced at a later date. Find obituary here.

Because he was brought up in a very racially divided and discriminatory atmosphere in rural Virginia, Kilmer actively supported the Civil Rights movement, and worked his whole life to improve conditions for those less fortunate than himself. Among other involvements, he traveled to Birmingham, Alabama to participate in freedom marches in June of 1962 and wrote a series of articles about those experiences for the local Sun Bulletin newspaper. He fervently disapproved of US involvement in the Viet Nam war and was both lauded and despised for advocating those antiwar views from the pulpit. He was never a hell fire and damnation preacher; rather he advocated care, compassion and proactive effort to fix problems and improve conditions for individuals and society as a whole. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/pressconnects/obituary.aspx?n=William-Kilmer-Sites&pid=174821810#sthash.Gephi9yD.KgPSJeOd.dpuf

• James Jeffrey Bradstreet, 60 … [WaPo, June 29, Michael Miller] Anti-vaccine doctor behind 'dangerous' autism therapy found dead. Family cries foul. His life was full of controversy. To thousands of supporters, he was a savior: a physician who claimed vaccines caused autism and promoted radical procedures to treat those afflicted, including his own son. To many others, however, he was a crackpot: a man who, despite his medical license, ignored science and championed dangerous, discredited and occasionally deadly treatments. It’s no surprise, therefore, that Bradstreet’s death is proving equally divisive. On the afternoon of June 19, a fisherman spotted Bradstreet’s lifeless body lying in the Broad River in the tiny town of Chimney Rock, N.C. He had a gunshot wound to his chest, authorities said. A gun was found in the water nearby. That’s about all that everyone can agree on. Like his research, Bradstreet’s death has become a Rorschach test in which his supporters see a conspiracy, while most everyone else — including law enforcement — sees a slow downward slide towards suicide. Read on.

• John Smith, 80, longtime Reading Eagle religion writer … [Legacy.com] From the obit, this only begins to tell the story of a wonderful man: "John dedicated many hours to his family, church, academics and sports throughout his lifetime, starting as a youth camp director following college. He was a longtime member of the Religion Newswriters Association and worked on several projects for the organization." Obituary here.

•• The obituary as a cautionary tale … [Legacy.com] When 22-year-old Clay William Shephard died May 17, 2015, his parents chose to share the story of his drug addiction with the world. Handsome and talented, Clay seemed to have it all; he was known for his broad smile and generous nature. (He spent his time, for instance, volunteering with his father at Carolina Tiger Rescue.) But drugs held a power over him that he couldn't shake. He was able to hide the worst of his addiction from his parents, preventing them from helping him before it was too late. In the obituary they wrote, Shephard's parents offered advice to parents and children alike in an attempt to stop such a tragedy from happening to anyone else: "To all children, this note is a simple reminder that there are people who love you, with everything they have and no matter what you do – don't be too afraid/ashamed/scared, too anything, to ask for help. To all parents, pay attention to your children and the world that revolves around them – even when the surface is calm, the water may be turbulent just beneath." It's one of a growing number of obituaries that spell out the tragic decisions made by loved ones in hopes that they can stop others before it's too late. Read on.

When 22-year-old Clay William Shephard died May 17, 2015, his parents chose to share the story of his drug addiction with the world. Handsome and talented, Clay seemed to have it all; he was known for his broad smile and generous nature. (He spent his time, for instance, volunteering with his father at Carolina Tiger Rescue.) But drugs held a power over him that he couldn't shake. He was able to hide the worst of his addiction from his parents, preventing them from helping him before it was too late. In the obituary they wrote, Shephard's parents offered advice to parents and children alike in an attempt to stop such a tragedy from happening to anyone else: "To all children, this note is a simple reminder that there are people who love you, with everything they have and no matter what you do – don't be too afraid/ashamed/scared, too anything, to ask for help. To all parents, pay attention to your children and the world that revolves around them – even when the surface is calm, the water may be turbulent just beneath." It's one of a growing number of obituaries that spell out the tragic decisions made by loved ones in hopes that they can stop others before it's too late. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/news/in-the-news/the-obituary-as-a-cautionary-tale/3252/#sthash.29YeHL9P.dpuf

TaleSpin[• New item •• Repeat]• Praise God from whom all blessings flow … [Bill] Recently, during an eight to ten day span: the Supreme Court assured us that Obamacare was here to stay and that marriage equality extends throughout our land. Jerry Gaeta underwent successful surgery for breast cancer. Pope Francis gave the world an encyclical on climate change. The families of those murdered in Charleston's Mother Emmanuel Church offered forgiveness to the shooter. Debates began on tearing down the Confederate flag. Diplomatic relationship with Cuba was normalized. What a run? What else happened during that short span?

• Rescuer of 669 children from Holocast … [NYTimes, Robert D McFadden, July 1] Nicholas Winton, a Briton who said nothing for a half-century about his role in organizing the escape of 669 mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II, a righteous deed like those of Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg died on July 1 in Maidenhead, England. He was 106. It was only after Mr. Winton’s wife found a scrapbook in the attic of their home in 1988 — a dusty record of names, pictures and documents detailing a story of redemption from the Holocaust — that he spoke of his all-but-forgotten work in the deliverance of children who, like the parents who gave them up to save their lives, were destined for Nazi concentration camps and extermination. Read on.

• An Opus Dei priest with a magnetic touch … [Mark Oppenheimer, NYTimes, June 12] Last fall, I traveled to Palo Alto, Calif., to meet the man with the unusual gift. Some priests are known for their work among the poor, others for their learning, still others for decades of service to a parish. The Rev. C. John McCloskey III, a priest of the traditionalist Opus Dei order, has a different calling. He makes converts, often of the rich and Republican. He has personally prepared for conversion to Catholicism, among others, Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas; the Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork; the columnists Robert D. Novak and Lawrence Kudlow; the conservative publisher Alfred S. Regnery; the anti-abortion activist Bernard Nathanson; and Lewis E. Lehrman, an investment banker and former candidate for governor of New York. … Father McCloskey, 61, is hardly the only conservative priest or minister. But few have his knack for persuading political conservatives to adopt a different religion. … In the 1990s, dissatisfied with the Episcopal Church, Mr. Regnery attended two weekend retreats run by Father McCloskey. They became friends, and in 2006 or 2007, he became a Catholic. Read on.

• Myths, meaning and Homo sapiens … [WaPo Op-Ed, Michael Gerson, June 11]A new book about the long history of Homo sapiens emphasizes one unique capacity of our species: the ability to tell stories about ourselves, the capacity to create meaning. In the Washington Post, Michael Gerson says the best of those stories are not frauds , as the author asserts, but hints.

• Losing faith in religious higher education: What happens when a seminary professor joins the religiously unaffiliated? … [Chronicle of Higher Education, Brandon Withrow, July 6]Raised in an evangelical home. Published by evangelical publishers. Employed by an evangelical seminary and divinity school. That was my life until last year when — at the end of a long and difficult intellectual journey — I concluded I was actually a secular humanist and part of the growing demographic of Americans unaffiliated with a particular faith or church. Being a person of faith is an academic credential in the evangelical world, so when it was clear that I no longer possessed that faith, I made the difficult decision to leave behind my full-time (nontenured) faculty position. Read on.

• Homeless piano man gets new start … [WaPo] The city of Sarasota, Fla., has a project called “Sarasota Keys,” which installs lovely old upright pianos in public places where anyone can play. One day last week, a homeless man sat down at one of these sidewalk pianos at a public art exhibit and started playing the Styx’s “Come Sail Away.” Passersby took notice, pulling out smartphones to capture the moment and dollar bills to thank the musician. Read on.

Evangelical Lutheran Church • Maywood Church sells spiritual home, donates $140K to homeless … [Bergen Record NJ] Donation was made possible by the closing of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Maywood, whose membership had dwindled from a peak of 130 to fewer than two dozen, and the sale of its property. Read on.NEPA Synod website ... Here.

• Nadia Bolz Weber: A pastor for Americs's outsiders… [BBC, Jane Little, July 6]At the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, a foul-mouthed tattoo-loving Lutheran pastor who was once a Pagan, an alcoholic and a stand-up comedian, is reinventing church … "I had to start a church I'd want to show up to, basically because I'd rarely gone to one I liked," she says. "I actually told my bishop at some point during the process, 'Look, you could put me in a parish in the suburbs of some small town, but you and I both know that would be ugly for everyone involved, so how about I just start one?' He goes: 'Yeah, that sounds like a better idea.'" Read on.

ELCA website ... Here. ELCA News Service ... Here. ELCA's blogs may be found here. See especially "Web and Multimedia Development."Spirit Spinning ... for those who hunger and thirst for a deeper connection with God ... Here.

Roman Catholic• Situation with US Catholic youth is grim … [NCR, Christian Smith] Many American Catholics are worried about the apparently weak religious faith, practice and commitment of Catholic youth today and what it portends for the church’s future. Some observers are less concerned, however. I wish they were correct. But they are not. The situation, in fact, is grim. Read on.

The Vatican• A readers’ guide to “Laudato Si” … [NCR, Thomas Reese, June 26] This resource provides chapter-by-chapter guidance and with study questions to help in reading Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment. It is intended for book clubs, classes and small discussion groups. Read on.

• Vatican trial for for Józef Wesołowski a pivotal moment for Pope Francis … [Crux, John Allen, July 7] While Pope Francis is wowing vast crowds on a triumphant homecoming to Latin America this week, one of the pivotal moments of his papacy is set to begin back in Rome on Saturday with the opening of a criminal trial for former papal diplomat Józef Wesołowski on charges of sexual abuse of minors. Ultimately, it’s the threat of criminal sanctions from Vatican tribunals that underlies new accountability measures Francis has created to face the two most chronic sources of scandal he inherited when he was elected in March 2013 – sexual abuse and financial misconduct. The Wesołowski trial is the first major test of that criminal justice system under Francis. And it will have a great deal to say about whether this pontiff’s celebrated vow that there will be no “daddy’s boys” on his watch, meaning clerics able to remain above the law, actually has teeth. Read on.

Health and Wellness • Medicare plans to pay doctors for counseling on end of life … [NYTimes] Medicare, the federal program that insures 55 million older and disabled Americans, announced plans to reimburse doctors for conversations with patients about whether and how they would want to be kept alive if they became too sick to speak for themselves. The proposal would settle a debate that raged before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, when Sarah Palin labeled a similar plan as tantamount to setting up “death panels” that could cut off care for the sick. The new plan is expected to be approved and to take effect in January, although it will be open to public comment for 60 days. Medicare’s plan comes as many patients, families and health providers are pushing to give people greater say about how they die — whether that means trying every possible medical option to stay alive or discontinuing life support for those who do not want to be sustained by ventilators and feeding tubes. Read on.

• Resources … below

BookSpin• Resources … below.

Podcasts•• If you are interested in listening to podcasts … [Bill] The following podcasts may be found with the Stitcher app. I enjoy all of them. Not in any particular order. 1. TED Radio Hour; 2. Slate's Political Gabfest; 3. The Moth Podcast; 4.This American Life; 5. Radiolab from WNYC; 6. Hourly News Summary from NPR; 7. APM: A Prairie Home Companion; 8. Fresh Air; 9. Science Friday; 10. PBS News Hour; 11. The Pulse, WHYY; 12. OnBeing with Krista Tippett; 13. 60 Minutes, CBS; 14. The Ethicists; 15. Popping Collars. More to come. If you have a favorite podcast, please tell Bill, who will tell the world.

Media/Films/TV/Music/Tech• Resources … below.

VariaSpin• Want to feel happier? … [WaPo] (1) Spend two minutes a day for 21 day scanning the world for three new things you’re grateful for. (2) For two minutes a day, think of one positive experience that’s occurred during the past 24 hours. Bullet point each detail you can remember. It works, because the brain can’t tell the difference between visualization and actual experience. (3) 15 minutes of cardiovascular exercise a day is the equivalent of taking an anti-depressant for the first six months, but with a 30 percent lower relapse rate over the next two years. This is not a repudiation of anti-depressants. It’s an indication that exercise works, because your brain records a victory, and that cascades to the next activity. (4) Breathe. Hands off the keyboard for two minutes a day while simply watching your go in and out. (5) Conscious acts of kindness. Most powerful. For two minutes each day, start work by writing a two-minute positive e-mail or text praising or thanking one person you know. And do it for a different person each day. Read on.

Resources

DioBeth• Look for a Diocese of Bethlehem newsletter every Thursday … One or another newsletter is published every Thursday in the following order: (1) The Leadership News, (2) The newSpin newsletter, (3) The Diocesan e-Newsletter, (4) The newSpin newsletter.The Leadership News and the Diocesan e-Newsletter are official publications of the Diocese of Bethlehem. They include news, info, features and events relating to our diocese and parishes. Find the most recent Diocesan e-Newsletter, June 4, here. Find the most recent Leadership News, May 7, here.The newSpin newsletter is not an official publication – and will usually not duplicate news, info and features relating to our diocese and parishes found in the official newsletters. It is a relatively lengthy eclectic sampling of items related to religion – at times not, at times not so clearly – that the editor thinks readers might find to be of interest. It has been a kind of hobby of a onetime communication minister, the work of a volunteer who in retirement enjoys and dedicates time to do the research required. I always post the newSpin newsletter on the newSpin blog. If you wish to receive it by email, please send a note to Jo Trepagnier, jo@diobeth.org.

• Bethlehem Episcopalians … is a new Facebook group for conversations about mission, spirituality, Christian formation, and more. It was launched a few weeks ago and will replace the Bakery email list which has been taken down. "Bethlehem Episcopalians is an open group," wrote Archdeacon Rick Cluett, "which means that anyone can join and items that you post can be shared by group members on their own Facebook pages. This offers each of us the opportunity to reach a larger audience with news and conversations about what God is doing in our diocese." Join the Facebook group.• DioBeth website• Stumbling into the Sacred ... [Reflections on seeing God in the everyday by Canon Anne E. Kitch]• newSpin blog ... including the newSpin weekly by Bill Lewellis.• Facebook Page …• Facebook Group … Bethlehem Episcopalians• Twitter …• Flickr• YouTube• Vimeo• LinkedIn

Franklin Graham had a revelation. On Friday, Graham said it has “dawned” on him on how to “fight the tide of moral decay that is being crammed down our throats by big business, the media, and the gay & lesbian community.”

- See more at: http://elielcruz.religionnews.com/2015/06/07/franklin-graham-calls-on-christians-to-blacklist-lgbt-friendly-companies/?email=blewellis%40diobeth.org#sthash.WI32aUeD.dpuf

SpiritSpin• The Book of Common Prayer ... every edition from 1549 to 1979. Here.• Prayers and Thanksgivings from the BCP ... Here.• The (Online) Book of Common Prayer ... Here.• The Daily Office ... can be read online in Rite I, Rite II or the New Zealand Prayer Book versions. At Mission St. Clare.• The Daily Office ... from the Diocese of Indianapolis. Here.• Daily Prayer ... a resource of Forward Movement. Here.• Holy Women, Holy Men ... Download Holy Women, Holy Men as a .pdf file.• Speaking to the Soul ... An Episcopal Café blog. Sermons, reflections, multimedia meditations and excerpts from books on spirituality. Here.• The Imitation of Christ ... Available free online.

Evangelism/Stewardship/Church Growth• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.

Media/Film/TV/Books/Podcasts/Music/Tech• Spirituality & Film ... Here.• Spirituality on DVD ... Here.• Books for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Audios for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Free eBooks by Project Gutenberg ... Here. • Free Audiobooks from LibriVox ... Here. • Free Audiobooks and eBooks ... Here and Here. • Google Books ... Millions of books you can preview or read free. Here. • The Online Books Page ... from UPenn. Here.• More free eBooks and Audiobooks ... [Techlicious] Here.• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told about your congregation, it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.• Communicate … Your Ministry, including Bill's Communication Biases and Communication-Evangelism. Here.

Religious Freedom Recap, our weekly look back at the top stories and developments on religious liberty around the world. - See more at: http://brianpellot.religionnews.com/2013/09/16/burkini-compromise-pope-hearts-atheists-dozen-muslim-march-religious-freedom-recap-sept-9-sept-16/#sthash.nA6J6Y1Y.dpuf

******************The newSpin newsletter is uploaded to the newSpin blog and posted on Bakery and on other diocesan lists of some 2,000 addresses. Many recipients forward it to others. It comes, of course, with some spin from the editor. The views expressed, implied or inferred in items or links contained in the newsletter or the blog do not represent the official view of the Diocese of Bethlehem unless expressed by or forwarded from the Bishop, the Standing Committee or the Archdeacon as an official communication. Comments are welcome on Bakery (if you are subscribed to that interactive list) and at the newSpin blog. At the newSpin blog, click in the right hand column on the title of the current newsletter. Then, make your comment below.

June 10, 2015

[The newSpin newsletter will not be published on June 25. The next issue will be July 9.]

TopSpin [• New item •• Repeat]

• The Media Hub for the 2015 General Convention of the Episcopal Church … Tune in here for live-streaming from Salt Lake City of legislative sessions from both houses, daily worship, press round-ups, and on-demand features. Plus you'll find links to coverage from Episcopal News Service and a complete calendar of events. June 22 to July 3, 2015. Find a wealth of information on this site now.

• The four nominees for presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church … will be formally submitted to the General Convention during a joint session on June 26, the day prior to the day set for the election by the House of Bishops of the 27th presiding bishop. They are: The Rt. Rev. Thomas Breidenthal, 64, Diocese of Southern Ohio; The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, 62, Diocese of North Carolina; The Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas, 56, Diocese of Connecticut; The Rt. Rev. Dabney Smith, 61, Diocese of Southwest Florida. Read on. Find each nominees response to questions about his vision for the church here. Additionally, find a video interview, approximately five minutes, with each nominee here. g

•• Liberation Theology on the NYTimes front page … [Episcopal Café] A little late to the party, the New York Times has written a lengthy article about the resurgence of liberation theology, a movement within the Roman Catholic Church that fell out of favor during the Cold War because of theoretical links to Soviet Russia. It was a movement embraced by many Catholics, including the famous writer, Graham Greene. Read on.

• Encyclical on the environment … [AP, June 4] Pope Francis’ eagerly awaited environment encyclical will be published June 18. The Vatican took the unusual step Thursday of announcing the release date in advance “to avoid confusion over the diffusion of unconfirmed information.” Read on.• Going Green: Covering the environmental encyclical … [Religion Link] This month (June 2015), Pope Francis will issue an authoritative document, called an encyclical, on the environment, the first pope to dedicate an encyclical to the theme of ecology. "Laudato Sii," or "Praise Be" will make the environment and climate change a front-burner issue for the world's 1.2 billion Catholics and many more, thanks to Francis' great popularity. What will the encyclical include? How much effect will it have inside the church? Will it have any influence outside the borders of Catholicism? What effect will the encyclical have as he prepares for a visit to the U.S. that will include stops at the United Nations and Congress? This edition of ReligionLink aims to help reporters tackle those questions before and after the encyclical's publication. Read on.• Getting ahead of the spin on the Pope's environmental encyclical … [Crux] John Allen offer four predictions about how the Pope's encyclical on the environment is likely to be spun and miscast in the early round of insta-analysis. Read on. See also Cue the Predictable Conservative Backlash under "Roman Catholic," way below.• The new Vatican priority … [Bill] I've been a Vatican watcher since the early '60s and, except for those early '60 years of the Second Vatican Council which generated its own good publicity, I can't think of another event that received such good press (even before it happened) than the unusual announced release of the encyclical on the environment. About a year or so ago, I read that the Vatican had hired a communication pro. His name, though I recognized it at the time, now escapes me, though I do recall my thinking that good communication might have become a priority and a big change might be at hand.

• Donation dilemma … [Kiplinger, Cameron Huddleston, May 21] The recent crackdown on four cancer charities is a good reminder to make sure your donations are put to good use. You hear the words "childhood disease" or “cancer victim" or "natural disaster,” and it can be hard to say no to donation requests to help. But your instinct to be generous always should be tempered by a healthy dose of skepticism. Case in point: The Federal Trade Commission charged four cancer charities with bilking donors out of $187 million. The FTC announced on May 19 that the Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services, Children’s Cancer Fund of America and The Breast Cancer Society allegedly used most of the funds raised to support cancer patients to instead benefit the charities’ organizers and their family members and friends. Donations were allegedly spent on cars, cruises, concert tickets and other items that did not help cancer patients. So how can you make sure that the money you give doesn’t end up lining the pockets of the unneedy? Follow these tips. (1) Hang up on telemarketers. (2) Don't wait for charities to come to you. (3) Research before you give. (4) Never send cash. Read on.

• Ireland’s bishops are considering the way forward after the country voted two to one in favor of same-sex marriage … [The Tablet]The intervention of two prominent Irish Catholic women, one a former president and the other a journalist, has been credited with helping to shift public opinion towards a “yes” vote in Ireland’s referendum on legalising same-sex marriage. With the country in the international spotlight as the first state in the world to enshrine gay marriage in its constitution by popular vote, questions were asked as to why this once socially conservative nation, 84 per cent of whose population self-identified as Catholic in the 2011 census, should have defied the Church so obviously on this issue. According to Fr Brendan Hoban of the Association of Catholic Priests, the intervention on the “yes” side of former President Mary McAleese and broadcaster TV3’s political editor Ursula Halligan, both practising Catholics, the one supporting her gay son, the other coming to terms with her own sexuality, should not be underestimated. A series of personal testimonies of high-profile gay politicians, sports stars and their family members also contributed to the “yes” side. Read on.• CéadMíleFáilte: Open Hearts, Shifting Power Paradigms, and the Irish Same-Sex Referendum … [Religion Dispatches, Gareth Higgins] I don’t buy the notion that the recent same-sex marriage referendum, won with 62 percent of the electorate affirming the right of any two adults to form such a partnership, signals that only now have the Irish people suddenly become open-minded and progressive. Many Irish people always had open hearts. What has changed is that the public power structures have shifted. Over the last 20 years, the credibility of the Catholic hierarchy was radically undermined by evidence of how terribly they had dealt with the abusive behavior of some priests, and how they had utterly failed to deal with the impact of this behavior on victims and survivors. But there had been rumblings of discontent for some time—the church had been proven wrong on so many social and cultural issues where compassion is necessary (divorce, the criminalization of homosexual acts) that the abuse scandal was not the origin of the collapse of Christendom’s hold over the state, but rather its tipping point. Read on.

• Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis charged … [Star-Tribune, Minneapolis] The Ramsey County attorney’s office filed criminal charges Friday against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for “failing to protect children” from an abusive priest, marking the first time that a U.S. archdiocese has been criminally charged for such offenses. Lawyers say criminal charges are unprecedented. Read on. Also, NCR here.

DioBeth [• New item •• Repeat]•• Look for a Diocese of Bethlehem newsletter every Thursday … [Bill] One or another newsletter is published every Thursday in the following order: (1) The Leadership News, (2) The newSpin newsletter, (3) TheDiocesan e-Newsletter, (4) ThenewSpin newsletter. The Leadership News and the Diocesan e-Newsletter are official publications of the Diocese of Bethlehem. They include news, info, features and events relating to our diocese and parishes. Find the most recent Diocesan e-Newsletter, June 4, here. Find the most recent Leadership News, May 7, here. The newSpin newsletter is not an official publication – and will usually not duplicate news, info and features relating to our diocese and parishes found in the official newsletters. It is a relatively lengthy eclectic sampling of items related to religion – at times not, at times not so clearly – that the editor thinks readers might find to be of interest. It has been a kind of hobby of a onetime communication minister, the work of a volunteer who in retirement enjoys and dedicates time to do the research required. I always post the newSpin newsletter on the newSpin blog. If you wish to receive it by email, please send a note to Jo Trepagnier, jo@diobeth.org.

•• Bethlehem Episcopalians … is a new Facebook group for conversations about mission, spirituality, Christian formation, and more. It was launched a few weeks ago and will replace the Bakery email list which has been taken down. "Bethlehem Episcopalians is an open group," wrote Archdeacon Rick Cluett, "which means that anyone can join and items that you post can be shared by group members on their own Facebook pages. This offers each of us the opportunity to reach a larger audience with news and conversations about what God is doing in our diocese." Join the Facebook group, which, as of Wednesday, May 27, includes more than 150 members.

•• Bakery list has shut down … [Archdeacon Rick Cluett] The Bakery list has had a long history of ministry to the members and friends of the Diocese of Bethlehem as a vehicle for information sharing, communication and conversation. Membership has crossed parish, diocesan, state, and national boundaries over the years and decades. Bill Lewellis has been the primary keeper and manager of the list since shortly after its beginning. He is also the unofficial list historian. I am very grateful for this ministry to the diocese and the larger church in which he has served so well. We know that “new occasions teach new duties” and the time has come to move to a new communication model. Please do make the switch to “Bethlehem Episcopalians" on Facebook. Sharing and conversing is already well underway there. You can find and join “Bethlehem Episcopalians” by clicking on this address or pasting it in your browser: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bethlehemepiscopalians/. I hope to “see,” read and converse with all of you over there as we go forward together with the companionship of the Holy Spirit.

•• Jubilate – Pentecost 2015 (B) … Jubilate is a gift of the Diocese of Bethlehem to the Episcopal and Anglican world through the kindness and talent of Canon Cliff Carr who has been doing this for more than 30 years. Thank you, Cliff. Download Jubilate Pentecost B 2015

The stunning vote of the Irish to legalize same-sex marriage will be taken as one more indication (along with the legalization of divorce and homosexual behavior and abortion if the mother’s life is at risk, plus the decline in Mass attendance and priestly vocations) of the collapse of the Catholic Church in a country where it once bestrode the sod like a colossus. Such would appear to be the wages of a rolling sexual abuse scandal, particularly acute because of the church’s control of public education, and the ugly history of its abusive homes for wayward boys and girls.

But for all that, Ireland remains a country where over 70 percent of the population identifies as Catholic, where a higher proportion of Catholics go to Mass than in the U.S., where the divorce rate is low. And yet, every Irish political party supported the referendum and the citizenry voted in favor by a 62-38 margin. What gives?

- See more at: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2015/05/23/irish-catholicism-supports-same-sex-marriage/#sthash.c6vMYDqD.dpuf

Episcopal/Anglican[• New item •• Repeat]• Episcopal Relief & Development partners with Texas dioceses on flood response… [ERD] Episcopal Relief & Development is partnering with the Episcopal dioceses of Texas and West Texas in response to severe flooding caused by weeks of heavy rain across the region. Church teams in both dioceses are providing pastoral care and conducting needs assessments in areas where people lost homes and belongings to the floods, and church facilities are acting as ministry bases for outreach efforts. Episcopal Relief & Development support will assist affected households with gas, groceries and repair supplies, as well as storage for salvaged belongings and temporary housing for evacuees. Read on.

• The Media Hub for the 2015 General Convention of the Episcopal Church … See above, under TopSpin.• The four nominees for presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church … above, under TopSpin.

• Dame Sarah Mullaly is latest Church of England episcopal appointment … [Episcopal Café] Bishop Suffragan to the see of Crediton in Devon. She will be consecrated at a service in Canterbury in July, alongside the Venerable Rachel Treweek, who will be the first woman consecrated as a diocesan bishop. Mullally is the fourth female bishop to be appointed since the Church of England opened the order to women late last year. Read on.Thinking Anglicans has the full press release and more links here.• Empty pews not the end of the world … [The Telegraph, UK] Declining numbers at services should not necessarily be a cause of despair for churches because people will still “encounter God” without ever taking their place in a pew, the Church of England’s newest bishop designate has insisted. Dame Sarah Mullally, the former NHS Chief Nurse for England who has been named as the next Bishop of Crediton, said clerics must recognise that young people are as likely to hear the Christian message through social media sites such as Facebook or in cafés as in a church. In a remarkably varied career, the 53-year-old mother-of-two has now risen to the top of two very different professions. Read on.

• Church of England 'one generation away from extinction' after dramatic loss of followers … [The Independent, UK] The Church of England has lost nearly two million followers in the last two years and is on the brink of "extinction," it has been warned. The number of people in the UK who describe their beliefs as being Church of England or Anglican dropped from 21 per cent to 17 per cent between 2012 and 2014- a loss of around 1.7 million followers. The number of Anglicans in Britain is now thought to stand at around 8.6 million. Read on.• Church of England decline heralds calls for innovative use of church buildings … [The Guardian, UK] With both rural attendance and beliefs falling in the UK, the clergy are stressing the need for creative solutions. Read on.

• Ex-bishop Heather Cook's Maryland manslaughter trial slated for September … [WaPo, Michelle Boorstein, June 3] Much of the intense interest around the death of cyclist Thomas Palermo has been not on Heather Cook’s trial – she struck and killed the husband and father while driving drunk – but on broader questions about church accountability, addiction and how clergy are treated and screened. Read on

• Resources … way below.

SpiritSpin [• New item •• Repeat]• The difference in effects between a Buddhist meditation and Centering Prayer … [Contemplative Outreach]Q: I am curious about the difference in effects between a Buddhist meditation and Centering Prayer, given that in Centering Prayer there is a large emphasis on consenting to the Divine presence as we are being "worked on." In Buddhist meditation, since there is no such intention to an outside source, does the same kind of "divine therapy" take place regardless? Or are there different effects? Response.•• 'Dying is my next career' … [RNS] Author Phyllis Tickle faces death just as she enjoyed life. “Am I grateful for this?” says renowned spirituality author, facing Stage IV lung cancer. “Not exactly. But I’m not unhappy about it. And that’s very difficult for people to understand.” Read on.• Pope Francis: The Eucharist is not a reward for the good … [Excerpt from the homily of Pope Francis on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi]The Christ present in our midst, in the signs of bread and wine, requires that the power of love exceed every laceration, and at the same time that it become communion with the poor, support for the weak, fraternal attention to those who are struggling to carry the weight of everyday life and are in danger of losing faith”. To be cowardly, to despair of our sinfulness means to let ourselves be affected by the idolatries of our time: appearance, consumption, the self at the centre of everything; but also being competitive, arrogance as the winning attitude, the idea that one never need admit to a mistake or to find oneself in need. All this demeans us, makes us mediocre, lukewarm, insipid Christians, pagans … In this way we understand that the Eucharist is not a reward for the good, but rather strength for the weak, for sinners. It is forgiveness, the viaticum that helps us on our way.

•• 'The Road to Character' and a path to grace … [WaPo, Michael Gerson] With his new book, “The Road to Character,” David Brooks — New York Times columnist, PBS “NewsHour” commentator and serial mensch — emerges as a countercultural leader. His goal is the recovery of “a vast moral vocabulary and set of moral tools, developed over centuries and handed down from generation to generation.” His method is to profile “heroes of renunciation” — a diverse group consisting of men and women, minorities and whites, gay people and straight, aristocratic and blue-collar, generally shaped by tragedy and driven to make unsparing demands on themselves. Read on.

• Spirit Resources ... way below.

Columns, Sermons, Reflections and other Spin [• New item •• Repeat]•• Your sermon? … If you have a sermon you might like uploaded to the newSpin blog and linked to from the newSpin newsletter, point bill.lewellis@gmail.com to it online or send it to him as an attached file.

• Help for the world's 'broken places' … [WaPo, Michael Gerson, June 4] People turn to clinics and hospitals only when the Spear Masters, traditional healers, have failed. Home birth is presumed. Contraception is almost nonexistent. According to a recent U.N. report, a 15-year-old girl living in South Sudan is more likely to die in childbirth than to complete school. This is the definition of far away, of foreign, of the other. And it illustrates a broader point about global poverty. Nearly a billion people have risen out of poverty in the past 20 years. The original aim under the Millennium Development Goals to halve global poverty between 1990 and 2015 was met five years early, with China and India playing leading roles. The poverty that remains, however, is increasingly concentrated in the hardest places to touch and reach: fragile states such as South Sudan. More than 50 percent of people living in extreme poverty are found in the 50 most vulnerable countries, according to World Vision. This group counts 70 percent of the world’s infant mortality and 77 percent of children who aren’t in school. The president of World Vision, Rich Stearns — with whom I traveled in South Sudan — has been driven to expand operations in fragile states, in part by an algorithm his organization employs to determine the greatest need. “Fragile states are the future of poverty,” he says. “If we are not in these places, we are irrelevant.” Read on.

The gospel according to the 'Nones' … [America, Elizabeth Drescher] Many of the unaffiliated continue to find Scripture – especially the parables of Jesus – spiritually meaningful and morally relevant. Read on.

• Caitlyn Jenner, gender identity and Christian behaving badly (again) … [Religion Dispatches, Daniel Schultz] Christians have to learn to adapt to cultural change in a way that goes beyond “no.” We live in a changing world. That’s what it means to be human, living in time. We need to deal with it. We don’t have to say, behold, God is doing a new thing! Things change. That’s all. You can say that God is eternal and unchanging, but there’s approximately zero evidence from scripture to say that God is not adaptable, and certainly none that says humans should be inflexible, either. Transgender people aren’t going away just because some church leaders declare gender reassignment a sin. For one thing, nobody listens to religious leaders anymore, and, as we’ve seen, sexual identity may go deep, but it cannot touch the full depths or reality of human nature. Read on.

• Information is not wisdom … [Big Think] Given the age in which we live, it's easy to equate intelligence with access to information. And, of course, information is a big part of knowledge and intelligence, Kathleen Kelley Reardon writes at Big Think. But it is not wisdom.

• New study reaffirms the link between conservative religious faith and climate change doubt … [WaPo] Findings suggest that individuals in religious traditions that are more prone to teach biblical literalism are less likely to express high degrees of concern about the environment.Read on.• Why Christian fundamentalism is still a big deal in U.S. politics, and how it got that way … [Religion Dispatches, Jonathan J. Edwards] Fundamentalists have engaged the public square in several ways since the early 20th century from the early days of separation to the rise of the modern megachurch. When Texas Senator Ted Cruz announced his presidential candidacy this spring he urged conservative voters to claim their power—”I want to ask each of you to imagine, imagine millions of courageous conservatives, all across America, rising up together to say in unison ‘we demand our liberty.’” This rhetorical move, in which conservative Christians are cast as both oppressed minority and a latent majority, is a timeworn trope. But recognizing this language and how it works is key to understanding the way fundamentalist religion operates in politics. Read on.

Four tips for following Jesus in election season … [Sojourners] So how does the Jesus community live in this election season as a signpost of the kingdom rather than a pawn in a political power play? Read on.

•• 5 ways churches inflicted pain on themselves … [RNS, Tom Ehrich] Christianity isn't in trouble at all. Churches are in trouble. Denominations are in trouble. Religious institutions like seminaries are in trouble. Professional church leaders are in trouble. But whether or not our churches stay open for business, God will keep on loving all that God has made, writes Tom Ehrich. Read on.

•• Lilly Family School of Philanthropy … Dedicated to improving philanthropy by training and empowering students and practitioners to create positive and lasting change in the world. Here.

• Resources ... way below

In the Media[• New item •• Repeat]•• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.Rest in Peace[• New item •• Repeat]• W. Kilmer Sites, 94 … "Kilmer or Bill as I knew him was a good friend and classmate at Seminary," Eric Snyder said. "He and his wife, Elisabeth, were friends to many in the diocese. A tradition which many of us enjoyed was the Christmas reading with them of Auden's Christmas Oratorio. Elisabeth died a few years back." Scott Allen "loved Kilmer's wit and wisdom. He was one of only two Union Theological Seminary grads I have known in the diocese. Eric was the other." Eric added: "Elizabeth was also a Union grad. It was she who made an Episcopalian out of him. He and I started out as Presbyterians. With Kilmer gone not many of us from our day are left." Rick Cluett wrote: "Kilmer was a wonderful, gracious man and a caring priest. He served this diocese and many congregations very well. He and Elizabeth moved here after serving many, many years as the founding rector of a congregation in Endicott, NY. He was an avid tennis player and played regularly with diocesan friends. Elizabeth was an author of several works. They were missed when they moved to be nearer their children. St. Anne's, Trexlertown was their home parish here."

The Reverend William Kilmer Sites, aged 94, died Friday, May 8th at the Solder's Home in Holyoke, Massachusetts where he was a resident for the last several years. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/pressconnects/obituary.aspx?n=William-Kilmer-Sites&pid=174821810#sthash.Gephi9yD.dpufdied May 8 at the Solder's Home in Holyoke, Massachusetts where he was a resident for the last few years. Because he was brought up in a very racially divided and discriminatory atmosphere in rural Virginia, Kilmer actively supported the Civil Rights movement, and worked his whole life to improve conditions for those less fortunate than himself. Among other involvements, he traveled to Birmingham, Alabama to participate in freedom marches in June of 1962 and wrote a series of articles about those experiences for the local Sun Bulletin newspaper (Binghamton NY). He fervently disapproved of US involvement in the Viet Nam war and was both lauded and despised for advocating those antiwar views from the pulpit. He was never a hell fire and damnation preacher; rather he advocated care, compassion and proactive effort to fix problems and improve conditions for individuals and society as a whole.

He was an extraordinary man who led an extraordinary life. As was his long-time wish, his body has been given to a medical school to assist students in their studies. Plans for a memorial service will be announced at a later date. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/pressconnects/obituary.aspx?n=William-Kilmer-Sites&pid=174821810#sthash.Gephi9yD.KgPSJeOd.dpuf He was an extraordinary man who led an extraordinary life. As was his long-time wish, his body has been given to a medical school to assist students in their studies. Plans for a memorial service will be announced at a later date. Find obituary here.

Because he was brought up in a very racially divided and discriminatory atmosphere in rural Virginia, Kilmer actively supported the Civil Rights movement, and worked his whole life to improve conditions for those less fortunate than himself. Among other involvements, he traveled to Birmingham, Alabama to participate in freedom marches in June of 1962 and wrote a series of articles about those experiences for the local Sun Bulletin newspaper. He fervently disapproved of US involvement in the Viet Nam war and was both lauded and despised for advocating those antiwar views from the pulpit. He was never a hell fire and damnation preacher; rather he advocated care, compassion and proactive effort to fix problems and improve conditions for individuals and society as a whole. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/pressconnects/obituary.aspx?n=William-Kilmer-Sites&pid=174821810#sthash.Gephi9yD.KgPSJeOd.dpuf

• Linda Moggio, 70 … died on June 2. She faithfully dedicated herself in life to Christian education and music, retiring from Christ Episcopal Church Reading last year. She served also at St. Anne's Trexlertown. Kim Reinholz said Linda "wrangled" her into teaching Rite 13 in 2005 at Christ Church when Kim was fresh out of graduate school and trying to figure out where God wanted to take her next. Linda was a devout Moravian. A memorial service was held at Christ Church on June 10. Obituary here.

• Beau Biden, 46 … [NYTimes, Michael D Shear, June 2] Joseph R. Biden III, the former attorney general of Delaware and the elder son of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., died May 30 in Bethesda, Md. The cause was brain cancer. He had spent more than a week receiving treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he died. In a statement that night, the vice president said, “It is with broken hearts that Hallie, Hunter, Ashley, Jill and I announce the passing of our husband, brother and son, Beau, after he battled brain cancer with the same integrity, courage and strength he demonstrated every day of his life.” The statement went on to say, “In the words of the Biden family: Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known.” In an outpouring of sympathy, many people on Twitter posted links to the vice president’s graduation speech at Yale University in May. Mr. Biden spoke at length about the tragedies he had endured and the ways they had made him stronger. “Six weeks after my election, my whole world was altered forever,” he said, referring to his election to the Senate in 1972 and the crash that killed his wife and infant daughter. He said he had found redemption by focusing on his sons. “I can remember my mother, a sweet lady, looking at me after we left the hospital and saying, ‘Joey, out of everything terrible that happens to you, something good will come if you look hard enough for it,’ ” Mr. Biden told the Yale graduates. “She was right.” Mr. Biden reflected on his decision to travel home to Delaware each night even as he served in the Senate. Some said it suggested a lack of ambition, he noted, an indication that he was not serious about success as a national politician “But looking back on it,” Mr. Biden said, “the truth be told, the real reason I went home every night was that I needed my children more than they needed me.” In a statement Sunday morning (May 31), Secretary of State John Kerry quoted the vice president as once saying that after losing a loved one, “there is a black hole you feel in your chest, like you’re being sucked back into it.” But Mr. Kerry added that “Joe has also said there comes a day ‘when the thought of your son or daughter, or your husband or wife, brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes.’ "Read on. Find obituary here.President Obama’s eulogy for Beau Biden.

• Elizabeth Whittemore, 92 … died on April 19 in Massachusetts. She was the widow of Dean Larry Whittemore who served the Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, as dean from 1967 to 1983 when he retired. Liz was living in Vermont where she and Larry retired some years ago. Dean Whittemore died four years ago. Find Elizabeth's obituary here.

• Jean Ritchie, 92 …Appalachian singer of faith and faithlessness, the Kentucky-born folksinger who brought the centuries-old ballads she grew up with to a wide audience from the 1950s onward, died June 1 in her home in Berea, Kentucy. Obituary here. See also, NYTimes.

Jean Ritchie, the Kentucky-born folksinger who brought the centuries-old ballads she grew up with to a wide audience from the 1950s onward, died Monday evening. She was 92. Ritchie died in her home in Berea, Kentucky, with family around her, her niece Judy Hudson said. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/ns/jean-ritchie-obituary/174992477#sthash.UQY2g5QZ.dpuf

• Eugene Cullen Kennedy, 86 … [NCR, Peter Feuerherd, June 4] writer, psychologist, and former Maryknoll priest transformed into a lay Catholic activist, died June 3. Kennedy died in Lakeland Hospital in St. Joseph, Mich., with his wife, Sara, beside him and surrounded by family. Retired psychology professor at Loyola University Chicago, he was comfortable both inside powerful church circles – he was a confidante to the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and authored books about his friend – and on the outside, lobbying for changes about how the hierarchy handled sex abuse and other issues. Much of his retirement was spent talking to groups such as Voice of the Faithful, galvanizing lay action on church issues. Read on.

• The obituary as a cautionary tale … [Legacy.com] When 22-year-old Clay William Shephard died May 17, 2015, his parents chose to share the story of his drug addiction with the world. Handsome and talented, Clay seemed to have it all; he was known for his broad smile and generous nature. (He spent his time, for instance, volunteering with his father at Carolina Tiger Rescue.) But drugs held a power over him that he couldn't shake. He was able to hide the worst of his addiction from his parents, preventing them from helping him before it was too late. In the obituary they wrote, Shephard's parents offered advice to parents and children alike in an attempt to stop such a tragedy from happening to anyone else: "To all children, this note is a simple reminder that there are people who love you, with everything they have and no matter what you do – don't be too afraid/ashamed/scared, too anything, to ask for help. To all parents, pay attention to your children and the world that revolves around them – even when the surface is calm, the water may be turbulent just beneath." It's one of a growing number of obituaries that spell out the tragic decisions made by loved ones in hopes that they can stop others before it's too late. Read on.

When 22-year-old Clay William Shephard died May 17, 2015, his parents chose to share the story of his drug addiction with the world. Handsome and talented, Clay seemed to have it all; he was known for his broad smile and generous nature. (He spent his time, for instance, volunteering with his father at Carolina Tiger Rescue.) But drugs held a power over him that he couldn't shake. He was able to hide the worst of his addiction from his parents, preventing them from helping him before it was too late. In the obituary they wrote, Shephard's parents offered advice to parents and children alike in an attempt to stop such a tragedy from happening to anyone else: "To all children, this note is a simple reminder that there are people who love you, with everything they have and no matter what you do – don't be too afraid/ashamed/scared, too anything, to ask for help. To all parents, pay attention to your children and the world that revolves around them – even when the surface is calm, the water may be turbulent just beneath." It's one of a growing number of obituaries that spell out the tragic decisions made by loved ones in hopes that they can stop others before it's too late. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/news/in-the-news/the-obituary-as-a-cautionary-tale/3252/#sthash.29YeHL9P.dpuf

TaleSpin [• New item •• Repeat]

• Can sexuality be changed? … [The Atlantic, Olga Khazan, June 3] A trial in New Jersey this week will determine whether telling gay people that they can become straight constitutes consumer fraud. The ruling might mean the end of so-called “conversion therapies” for good. One reason conversion therapy still exists, even in a time of tremendous progress for gay rights, is that the roots of sexual orientation—and of sexual desire in general—have proved devilishly difficult to uncover clinically. Conversion therapists have used this scientific gap to their advantage.”

• Send me good vibrations … [Reuters] Pope Francis recently put a new twist on asking people to pray for him. As he was leaving a meeting with Argentine President Cristina Fernandezant in the Vatican, he turned to reporters and joked in Spanish: "Pray for me, and if some of you can't pray because you are not believers, send me good vibrations." Here.

BackSpin – Do you remember?• Spirituality and the Environment … [Bishop Mark Dyer, May 1991] We believe that creation is an icon of God, a window into the nature of God. We believe, therefore, that our misuse of creation is basically a sacrilege. It defaces the sacred icon of God, the very character of God's revelation. We Anglicans do theology by thinking first about revelation, i.e., about how God makes himself known to us. Many other Christians do theology by thinking first about salvation, i.e., about how, or what and from what God saves us.

We believe God made himself known to us best of all by incarnation, i.e., by becoming flesh in Jesus. We believe God continues to make himself know to us in creation. To destroy nature's sacred images of God is to give one another permission to destroy the sacred image of one another. Terrible moral consequences flow if the lifeweb is not together. About a year ago, I met with the Environmental Task Force of our diocese to present ideas contained in this letter and to ask them to advocate for this issue as the major theme of the 1991 Bishop's Mission Conference. I believe the preservation and nurturing of the environment in which we live is at the cutting edge today. I believe that caring for the environment is literally caring for the revelation of God.

Ecumenism, Interfaith, Pluralism – or Not• Pastor Creflo Dollar might get his $65 million private jet after all … [WaPo] Televangelist Creflo Dollar's ministry has announced that it will go ahead and buy a Gulfstream G650 jet anyway, "at a time, place and price of our choosing." Read on.

• Resources … way below.

Evangelical Lutheran Church NEPA Synod website ... Here. ELCA website ... Here. ELCA News Service ... Here. ELCA's blogs may be found here. See especially "Web and Multimedia Development."Spirit Spinning ... for those who hunger and thirst for a deeper connection with God ... Here.

United Methodist Church• Will same-sex marriage split the United Methodist Church? … [Religion & Politics] Despite rapid changes in church polity and public opinion, and with gay marriage now legal in all but 13 states, the nation's largest mainline denomination remains officially opposed to same-sex marriage. But what will that mean for its membership going forward? Read on.

Roman Catholic• Music chief for pope's Philly Mass quits in dispute with Archbishop Chaput … [RNS, David Gibson] The head of liturgical music for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, who was also to play a key role orchestrating the huge outdoor Mass concluding Pope Francis’ trip to the US in September, is resigning his post over long-standing differences with Archbishop Charles Chaput. John Romeri, who has headed the archdiocesan liturgical music office for five years, said that he will resign effective June 30 because “there are simply irreconcilable differences” with Chaput over the role and style of music at Mass. Read on. Also here.

• Cue the predictable conservative backlash … [Religion Dispatches, Kevin M. Lowe] Observers expect that Pope Francis’s environmental encyclical—supposedly titled Laudatio sii, or “Praised Be”—will be released within the next few weeks. Cue the predictable conservative backlash. Cries abound for the church to “stay out of politics” and focus instead on strictly religious matters. Read on. See also items under TopSpin.

• Top Vatican cardinal trailed by old child abuse scandal from Australia … [WaPo, Sarah Kaplan, June 3] Cardinal George Pell left Sydney two years ago to great fanfare. The longtime archbishop of Sydney and lauded “defender of the faith down under” had just been appointed chief of the Vatican’s finances — sometimes described as the second most powerful position in Rome. It is the highest an Australian has ever ascended in the church. But Pell couldn’t leave behind the child sex abuse scandal that had rocked his hometown or the hushed accusations that he had a part in it. Those accusations have grown louder and much more public since last month, when an Australian commission began hearings into a notorious pedophilia ring just down the road from where Pell once served as parish priest. Read on.

Health and Wellness • American Medical Association favors ending religious vaccine exemptions … [AP] The nation's largest doctors' group says parents should not be able to refuse to have their kids vaccinated for personal or religious reasons because of the health risks unvaccinated kids pose to others. Read on.

• Resources … below

BookSpin• Resources … below.

Podcasts•• If you are interested in listening to podcasts … [Bill] The following podcasts may be found with the Stitcher app. I enjoy all of them. Not in any particular order. 1. TED Radio Hour; 2. Slate's Political Gabfest; 3. The Moth Podcast; 4.This American Life; 5. Radiolab from WNYC; 6. Hourly News Summary from NPR; 7. APM: A Prairie Home Companion; 8. Fresh Air; 9. Science Friday; 10. PBS News Hour; 11. The Pulse, WHYY; 12. OnBeing with Krista Tippett; 13. 60 Minutes, CBS; 14. The Ethicists; 15. Popping Collars. More to come. If you have a favorite podcast, please tell Bill, who will tell the world.

Media/Films/TV/Music/Tech• U2: Comfort Me … [Cathleen Falsani, Religion Dispatches, June 3] Sorrow has visited the U2 family far too often this season. Bono narrowly escaped a bicycling accident in New York’s Central Park last November with his life (thank God for helmets) and may never play guitar again because of the damage done to his left arm during the crash. It was a hard-won physical rehabilitation that got the lead singer ready to return to the stage for the launch of the “Innocence + Experience” tour in Canada on May 14. Then, just a few days before the tour launched, drummer Larry Mullen’s father passed away at the age of 92. Mullen played that first concert in Vancouver after laying his father to rest just one day earlier in Dublin. In the wee hours of May 27, the band’s longtime tour manager and a fixture in the U2 community, Dennis Sheehan, died of a heart attackAnd in late February, U2 lost the man the band called its “North Star,” the Rev. Jack Heaslip, an Anglican priest who had known the band’s members since they were in high school (he was a guidance counselor at their Mount Temple school), and who, for 20 years had traveled the world with them as “spiritual counselor” and chaplain to the small city of technical, artistic, and support crew that tours with the band for months (and sometimes years) at a stretch.Heaslip, known simply as “Father Jack,” was a subtle if stalwart omnipresence. He was known to walk the perimeter of each performance venue, praying for the band, yes, and their crew, but also for the people—the fans—who would arrive by the thousands to hear U2 perform. Like Dennis Sheehan, “Father Jack,” kept everything running, behind the scenes—in the realm of the Spirit. His passing was a knee-bending blow. “The extended family is very important to us, and we look after each other,” Bono told the audience the evening of Mr. Sheehan’s death in Los Angeles. Read on.

• Credit or Debit? … [Money Girl] Six risky situations when you should avoid using a Debit Card. Read on.

Resources

DioBeth• Look for a Diocese of Bethlehem newsletter every Thursday … One or another newsletter is published every Thursday in the following order: (1) The Leadership News, (2) The newSpin newsletter, (3) The Diocesan e-Newsletter, (4) The newSpin newsletter.The Leadership News and the Diocesan e-Newsletter are official publications of the Diocese of Bethlehem. They include news, info, features and events relating to our diocese and parishes. Find the most recent Diocesan e-Newsletter, June 4, here. Find the most recent Leadership News, May 7, here.The newSpin newsletter is not an official publication – and will usually not duplicate news, info and features relating to our diocese and parishes found in the official newsletters. It is a relatively lengthy eclectic sampling of items related to religion – at times not, at times not so clearly – that the editor thinks readers might find to be of interest. It has been a kind of hobby of a onetime communication minister, the work of a volunteer who in retirement enjoys and dedicates time to do the research required. I always post the newSpin newsletter on the newSpin blog. If you wish to receive it by email, please send a note to Jo Trepagnier, jo@diobeth.org.

• Bethlehem Episcopalians … is a new Facebook group for conversations about mission, spirituality, Christian formation, and more. It was launched a few weeks ago and will replace the Bakery email list which has been taken down. "Bethlehem Episcopalians is an open group," wrote Archdeacon Rick Cluett, "which means that anyone can join and items that you post can be shared by group members on their own Facebook pages. This offers each of us the opportunity to reach a larger audience with news and conversations about what God is doing in our diocese." Join the Facebook group.• DioBeth website• Stumbling into the Sacred ... [Reflections on seeing God in the everyday by Canon Anne E. Kitch]• newSpin blog ... including the newSpin weekly by Bill Lewellis.• Facebook Page …• Facebook Group … Bethlehem Episcopalians• Twitter …• Flickr• YouTube• Vimeo• LinkedIn

Franklin Graham had a revelation. On Friday, Graham said it has “dawned” on him on how to “fight the tide of moral decay that is being crammed down our throats by big business, the media, and the gay & lesbian community.”

- See more at: http://elielcruz.religionnews.com/2015/06/07/franklin-graham-calls-on-christians-to-blacklist-lgbt-friendly-companies/?email=blewellis%40diobeth.org#sthash.WI32aUeD.dpuf

SpiritSpin• The Book of Common Prayer ... every edition from 1549 to 1979. Here.• Prayers and Thanksgivings from the BCP ... Here.• The (Online) Book of Common Prayer ... Here.• The Daily Office ... can be read online in Rite I, Rite II or the New Zealand Prayer Book versions. At Mission St. Clare.• The Daily Office ... from the Diocese of Indianapolis. Here.• Daily Prayer ... a resource of Forward Movement. Here.• Holy Women, Holy Men ... Download Holy Women, Holy Men as a .pdf file.• Speaking to the Soul ... An Episcopal Café blog. Sermons, reflections, multimedia meditations and excerpts from books on spirituality. Here.• The Imitation of Christ ... Available free online.

Evangelism/Stewardship/Church Growth• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.

Media/Film/TV/Books/Podcasts/Music/Tech• Spirituality & Film ... Here.• Spirituality on DVD ... Here.• Books for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Audios for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Free eBooks by Project Gutenberg ... Here. • Free Audiobooks from LibriVox ... Here. • Free Audiobooks and eBooks ... Here and Here. • Google Books ... Millions of books you can preview or read free. Here. • The Online Books Page ... from UPenn. Here.• More free eBooks and Audiobooks ... [Techlicious] Here.• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told about your congregation, it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.• Communicate … Your Ministry, including Bill's Communication Biases and Communication-Evangelism. Here.

Religious Freedom Recap, our weekly look back at the top stories and developments on religious liberty around the world. - See more at: http://brianpellot.religionnews.com/2013/09/16/burkini-compromise-pope-hearts-atheists-dozen-muslim-march-religious-freedom-recap-sept-9-sept-16/#sthash.nA6J6Y1Y.dpuf

******************The newSpin newsletter is uploaded to the newSpin blog and posted on Bakery and on other diocesan lists of some 2,000 addresses. Many recipients forward it to others. It comes, of course, with some spin from the editor. The views expressed, implied or inferred in items or links contained in the newsletter or the blog do not represent the official view of the Diocese of Bethlehem unless expressed by or forwarded from the Bishop, the Standing Committee or the Archdeacon as an official communication. Comments are welcome on Bakery (if you are subscribed to that interactive list) and at the newSpin blog. At the newSpin blog, click in the right hand column on the title of the current newsletter. Then, make your comment below.

May 28, 2015

• Flood damage at St. Stephen's Wilkes-Barre … [Joe Parish, interim rector, May 28] Please pray for us at St. Stephen's as our Parish House suffered some flood damage from a freak wind and thunder storm that blew branches and leaves into the roof drain resulting in the collection of a large amount of water on the roof and broke through into the Children's Chapel and church offices. The fire department decided the electricity to the House had to be cut off. As we are to host the Diocesan Stewardship/Evangelism conference in the Auditorium Saturday, we may need to seek an alternative location for that. Also a power cable from the House to one organ mechanism is not functioning, so we may have no organ until it is restored. • Update, May 28 … [Debra Kellerman] The only section affected is the office section. No copying/Internet available. The Nave lights are fine along with the parish hall (aka Auditorium). All questions should be directed to David Foust, our Senior Warden at the church and status updates will also come from him. Thank you for your prayers and concerns as we work through this paragraph in our story. • Update, Dan Charney … The Stewardship/Evangelism conference is STILL ON. I have spoken to folks involved at St. Stephen's, and have been assured that we are still on for Saturday. The areas we will be using are all ok. The damage done affects other areas of the building, so thanks be to God, we can go ahead as planned. If you know of people registered, and can spread the word, we would greatly appreciate it. • The May 30 Stewardship Conference … [Archdeacon Cluett] will take place as scheduled at St. Stephen's Pro-Cathedral in Wilkes-Barre despite the water damage. On May 30 from 8:15 am until 3 pm, the Diocesan Stewardship and Evangelism Committee will host a day-long conference at St. Stephen's Pro-Cathedral in Wilkes-Barre. The Rev. Dr. C.K. Robertson, canon to the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, will lead the day. His topic will be "The Barnabas Principle: A Practical Approach to Congregational Development." More info here.• Look for a Diocese of Bethlehem newsletter every Thursday … [Bill] One or another newsletter is published every Thursday in the following order: (1) The Leadership News, (2) The newSpin newsletter, (3) TheDiocesan e-Newsletter, (4) ThenewSpin newsletter. The Leadership News and the Diocesan e-Newsletter are official publications of the Diocese of Bethlehem. They include news, info, features and events relating to our diocese and parishes. Find the most recent Diocesan e-Newsletter, May 21, here. Find the most recent Leadership News, May 7, here. The newSpin newsletter is not an official publication – and will usually not duplicate news, info and features relating to our diocese and parishes found in the official newsletters. It is a relatively lengthy eclectic sampling of items related to religion – at times not, at times not so clearly – that the editor thinks readers might find to be of interest. It has been a kind of hobby of a onetime communication minister, the work of a volunteer who in retirement enjoys and dedicates time to do the research required. I always post the newSpin newsletter on the newSpin blog. If you wish to receive it by email, please send a note to Jo Trepagnier, jo@diobeth.org.

• Bethlehem Episcopalians … is a new Facebook group for conversations about mission, spirituality, Christian formation, and more. It was launched a few weeks ago and will replace the Bakery email list which has been taken down. "Bethlehem Episcopalians is an open group," wrote Archdeacon Rick Cluett, "which means that anyone can join and items that you post can be shared by group members on their own Facebook pages. This offers each of us the opportunity to reach a larger audience with news and conversations about what God is doing in our diocese." Join the Facebook group, which, as of Wednesday, May 27, includes more than 150 members.

• Bakery list will shut down … [Archdeacon Rick Cluett] Dear Friends, At 5 o’clock (EDT) this afternoon (May 28) the Bakery list will shut down. The Bakery list has had a long history of ministry to the members and friends of the Diocese of Bethlehem as a vehicle for information sharing, communication and conversation. Membership has crossed parish, diocesan, state, and national boundaries over the years and decades. Bill Lewellis has been the primary keeper and manager of the list since shortly after its beginning. He is also the unofficial list historian. I am very grateful for this ministry to the diocese and the larger church in which he has served so well. We know that “new occasions teach new duties” and the time has come to move to a new communication model. Please do make the switch to “Bethlehem Episcopalians" on Facebook. Sharing and conversing is already well underway there. You can find and join “Bethlehem Episcopalians” by clicking no this address or pasting it in your browser: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bethlehemepiscopalians/. I hope to “see,” read and converse with all of you over there as we go forward together with the companionship of the Holy Spirit.• The early days … [Barbara Caum, Trinity Athens] Ah, yes, the days of waiting for the dial up to shake hands with the Ecunet server, the blue screen with plain white text, and the community that arose from those simple beginnings. Amusingly, I was cleaning out an old cupboard recently and found 3.5 inch disks for Ecunet software for Quest, the Episcopal arm of that interdenominational community, which I was the wrangler for back in the day. BethlehemofPA (early version of Bakery) was a wonderful thing. That was well over 20 years ago, when I was doing presentations around the national church about the wonders of the Internet, that amazing new thing. It's hard to believe. Onward and upward, but not without a bit of sadness.• On a Saturday morning in 1994 … [Bill] I posted a story on Ecunet in response to a request from a writer in NH, prompted by a quote posted a few days earlier by a writer from NM. Later that Saturday, a writer from NY thanked me for posting the story. He said a friend from Bellingham WA sent it to him. "It's exactly what I needed to wrap up my sermon tomorrow," he wrote. Isn't it a wonder that something may happen for someone in a church in Aurora NY because someone in Bellingham WA felt that a story someone in Bethlehem PA told in response to a request from someone in Keene NH prompted by a quote posted by someone in Albuquerque NM was worth copying for a wider cyberspace public? That's the way it was. It hooked me into spending time online.

• Pope's focus on poor revives scorned theology … [NYTimes] Six months after becoming the first Latin American pontiff, Pope Francis invited an octogenarian priest from Peru for a private chat at his Vatican residence. Not listed on the pope’s schedule, the September 2013 meeting with the priest, Gustavo Gutiérrez, soon became public — and was just as quickly interpreted as a defining shift in the Roman Catholic Church. Father Gutiérrez is a founder of liberation theology, the Latin American movement embracing the poor and calling for social change, which conservatives once scorned as overtly Marxist and the Vatican treated with hostility. Now, Father Gutiérrez is a respected Vatican visitor, and his writings have been praised in the official Vatican newspaper. Francis has brought other Latin American priests back into favor and often uses language about the poor that has echoes of liberation theology. Read on.• Liberation Theology on the NYTimes front page … [Episcopal Café] A little late to the party, the New York Times has written a lengthy article about the resurgence of liberation theology, a movement within the Roman Catholic Church that fell out of favor during the Cold War because of theoretical links to Soviet Russia. It was a movement embraced by many Catholics, including the famous writer, Graham Greene. Read on.

• Irish Catholicism supports same-sex marriage … [RNS] The stunning vote of the Irish to legalize same-sex marriage will be taken as one more indication (along with the legalization of divorce and homosexual behavior and abortion if the mother’s life is at risk, plus the decline in Mass attendance and priestly vocations) of the collapse of the Catholic Church in a country where it once bestrode the sod like a colossus. Such would appear to be the wages of a rolling sexual abuse scandal, particularly acute because of the church’s control of public education, and the ugly history of its abusive homes for wayward boys and girls. But for all that, Ireland remains a country where over 70 percent of the population identifies as Catholic, where a higher proportion of Catholics go to Mass than in the U.S., where the divorce rate is low. And yet, every Irish political party supported the referendum and the citizenry voted in favor by a 62-38 margin. What gives? Read on. Also, Irish voters were not swayed by their church. Read it at Crux. And, Irish vote reflects diminished moral authority of Catholic Church. Read it at Religion Dispatches.

The stunning vote of the Irish to legalize same-sex marriage will be taken as one more indication (along with the legalization of divorce and homosexual behavior and abortion if the mother’s life is at risk, plus the decline in Mass attendance and priestly vocations) of the collapse of the Catholic Church in a country where it once bestrode the sod like a colossus. Such would appear to be the wages of a rolling sexual abuse scandal, particularly acute because of the church’s control of public education, and the ugly history of its abusive homes for wayward boys and girls.

But for all that, Ireland remains a country where over 70 percent of the population identifies as Catholic, where a higher proportion of Catholics go to Mass than in the U.S., where the divorce rate is low. And yet, every Irish political party supported the referendum and the citizenry voted in favor by a 62-38 margin. What gives?

- See more at: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2015/05/23/irish-catholicism-supports-same-sex-marriage/#sthash.c6vMYDqD.dpuf

Episcopal/Anglican• Saying the unsayable: The New Statesman's new issue on blasphemy … [The New Statesman] "If you are forbidden to voice the hard questions, this might suggest that faith survives only by never being challenged," the former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, writes in an essay defending blasphemy. "Job and some of the Psalms remind us that sometimes the seriousness of faith is most effectively explored precisely in the risky business of testing the limits. And without such testing, such forcefully expressed doubt, you may never know the real strength or weakness of what you claim to believe. The secularist needs to understand some of the internal critique that faith is always struggling with; and the believer needs to recognise that blasphemy isn’t necessarily a matter for panic, let alone violence. It may even be a gateway into a larger and more durable commitment." Read on.

•• Bishops United Against Gun Violence plans prayerful procession at General Convention … 61 bishops are planning an outdoor procession on Sunday morning, June 28, during General Convention. News release here. Member of the group here.

•• Four chosen as nominees for presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church … [ENS] The Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of the Presiding Bishop May 1 announced the names of the bishops it will nominate this summer to succeed Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. The four names will be formally submitted to the General Convention during a joint session on June 26, the day prior to the day set for the election by the House of Bishops of the 27th presiding bishop. The nominees are: The Rt. Rev. Thomas Breidenthal, 64, Diocese of Southern Ohio; The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, 62, Diocese of North Carolina; The Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas, 56, Diocese of Connecticut; The Rt. Rev. Dabney Smith, 61, Diocese of Southwest Florida. Read on. The JNCPB will shortly release additional information from each of the nominees. Each nominee has responded to questions about his vision for the church, which will be posted to the General Convention website soon. Additionally, each nominee made himself available for a video interview. These will also be made available soon.

SpiritSpin•• Jubilate – Pentecost 2015 (B) … Jubilate is a gift of the Diocese of Bethlehem to the Episcopal and Anglican world through the kindness and talent of Canon Cliff Carr who has been doing this for more than 30 years. Thank you, Cliff. Download Jubilate Pentecost B 2015

• 'Dying is my next career' … [RNS] Author Phyllis Tickle faces death just as she enjoyed life. “Am I grateful for this?” says renowned spirituality author, facing Stage IV lung cancer. “Not exactly. But I’m not unhappy about it. And that’s very difficult for people to understand.” Read on.• The Friend … [Esquire, Michael Teague] "No one ever told me the truth about dying," says Teague. "Not once. When it happened to my beloved, I lost my footing in more than one way." His wife was just thirty-four. They had two little girls. The cancer was everywhere, and the parts of dying that nobody talks about were about to start. His best friend came to help out for a couple weeks. And he never left. Read on.

• The Last Day of her Life … [NYTimes Magazine, Robin Marantz Henig] When Sandy Bem, a Cornell psychology professor, found out she had Alzheimer's at the age of 65, she knew immediately that before the disease claimed her mind, she would take her own life. "I want to live only for as long as I continue to be myself," she told her doctor. But how would she know when the right moment arrived to make her final exit? This is the agonizing question Bem wrestled with over the next five years, a period chronicled intimately in Robin Marantz Henig's cover story. "She wanted to squeeze in as much intellectual and emotional joy as she could before she died, but she wanted to make sure she didn't wait too long," Henig writes. "She needed to be engaged enough in her life to be able to end it." Read on.

• 'The Road to Character' and a path to grace … [WaPo, Michael Gerson] With his new book, “The Road to Character,” David Brooks — New York Times columnist, PBS “NewsHour” commentator and serial mensch — emerges as a countercultural leader. His goal is the recovery of “a vast moral vocabulary and set of moral tools, developed over centuries and handed down from generation to generation.” His method is to profile “heroes of renunciation” — a diverse group consisting of men and women, minorities and whites, gay people and straight, aristocratic and blue-collar, generally shaped by tragedy and driven to make unsparing demands on themselves. Read on.

• Tongues of fire and sacred mysteries … [The Economist] The word Pentecost is from the Greek for the “50th [day]” since Easter. There is more to Pentecost than just its etymology, though. The holiday highlights the very different attitudes of the major world religions towards language. Read on.

• Spirit Resources ... way below.

Columns, Sermons, Reflections and other Spin

•• Your sermon? … If you have a sermon you might like uploaded to the newSpin blog and linked to from the newSpin newsletter, point bill.lewellis@gmail.com to it online.

• At the Burial Office for Dolores Caskey … [Scott Allen] Below, under Rest in Peace.

Where Religion, Culture and Politics Might Intersect• No politics in church? Not so fast … [Religion & Politics] What does it mean for the church to be political? How should the church make decisions about when to engage or avoid politics? And what visions of politics are communicated by the actual practices of congregations?Read on.

• 5 ways churches inflicted pain on themselves … [RNS, Tom Ehrich] Christianity isn't in trouble at all. Churches are in trouble. Denominations are in trouble. Religious institutions like seminaries are in trouble. Professional church leaders are in trouble. But whether or not our churches stay open for business, God will keep on loving all that God has made, writes Tom Ehrich. Read on.

• Resources for church communications in the digital age … [Faith and Leaderahp] Christian leaders today have to grapple with one of the most profoundly disruptive trends in the world: the digital revolution. Faith & Leadership offers resources to help with communications -- online, in traditional media, in marketing, and within organizations. Read on.

• Lilly Family School of Philanthropy … Dedicated to improving philanthropy by training and empowering students and practitioners to create positive and lasting change in the world. Here.

• Resources ... way below

In the Media• Grace Kingston vandalized … [Episcopal Café] Graffiti on the church walls, the Gospel Book destroyed, statues and pew candles smashed and the tabernacle and the reserve sacraments desecrated. Grace Episcopal in Kingston, Pennsylvania, built in 1930, was vandalized on May 18. Read on.

• New Maryland bishop interviewed on NPR … [Episcopal Café] The appointment of the Rt Rev Chilton Knudsen as Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Maryland, following the deposition of Heather Cook, has drawn widespread attention and affirmation.Knudsen, a recovering alcoholic who has made recovery support and education part of her own ministry, spoke to NPR’s Renee Montagne from an addiction education day for clergy in Pennsylvania. Read on.

• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.Rest in Peace• Sermon at Burial Office, Dolores Caskey … [Scott Allen] No matter where you knew Dolores I can say that all that she did emanated from a deep faith in a God who is manifested in self-giving love. This faith did not express itself in saccharine piety, but in incarnational acts of justice, truth, mercy and love. Her faith had a very real social expression for the poor, the marginalized, the unfairly treated and the helpless.She took everything in stride and even in defeat did not back down from her principles. She was a non-anxious presence when emotions were high and more smoke than light was being generated in any debate or discussion---she was part of our Church’s controversies. For her, everything did have its time and season, but truth, justice and mercy did not. Articulate, she didn’t shy away from eating your lunch when an important principle was at stake. Read on.

• Brother Andrew Colquhoun, 77 … A funeral service for Brother Andrew will be held at Holy Cross Monastery, West Park NY on Sunday, May 31st, at 3 PM. All are invited. If you are able to attend, please let our Guesthouse Office know at 845-384-6660 or guesthouse@hcmnet.org. Read on here and here and here.

• Anne Meara, 85 … [Forward] Born into a Roman Catholic family, she converted to Reform Judaism in 1961, as she told People Magazine in 1977, because she “wanted my children to know who they were.” Read on. Obituary here.

• John F. Nash Jr, 86 … [WaPo, Emily Langer, and Reuters] Nobel laureate's life story inspired the Oscar-winning 2001 film A Beautiful Mind. He and his wife Alicia, 82, died Saturday (May 23) in a taxi crash on the New Jersey Turnpike. The West Virginia-born mathematician's breakthrough work on game theory came before he was 30, when debilitating schizophrenia began taking hold. His wife helped him through the "lost" decdes until he began to "intellectually reject" his delusions, ultimately solving the most vexing puzzle of all. Read on here and here. AP obituary here.

• John M. Templeton Jr., 75 … [RNA, Cathy Lynn Grossman] philanthropist devoted to science and religion, a pediatric surgeon who left medicine behind to carry on his fathers passion for pursuing “new spiritual information” through the sciences as president and chairman of the Templeton Foundation. Read on. Obituary here.

TaleSpin

• Faith and fiscal responsibility cause many conservatives to change their view of the death penalty … [ABA Journal] Along with spending issues, faith is taking a more prominent place in the anti-death penalty movement. The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty recently recruited conservative religious groups to lobby for an end to capital punishment.Read on. • Nebraska, and the conservative case for opposing the death penalty … [WaPo, Amber Phillips, May 27] Nebraska is now the first Republican state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty. Lawmakers there voted to abolish it last week, and on Wednesday they successfully overrode the Republican governor's veto to do so. So how did this happen? While the legislature is technically nonpartisan, it is for all intents and purposes under GOP control. And Republicans in Nebraska are successfully arguing that getting rid of the death penalty is a fundamentally conservative position. Read on.

• Americans continue to shift left on key moral issues … [Gallup] Moral Majority, redefined. Americans are more likely now than in the early 2000s to find a variety of behaviors morally acceptable, including gay and lesbian relations, having a baby outside of marriage and sex between an unmarried man and woman. Read on.

Evangelical Lutheran Church NEPA Synod website ... Here. ELCA website ... Here. ELCA News Service ... Here. ELCA's blogs may be found here. See especially "Web and Multimedia Development."Spirit Spinning ... for those who hunger and thirst for a deeper connection with God ... Here.

Moravian ChurchMoravian Church in North Americawebsite. Moravian Church Northern Provincewebsite. Moravian Theological Seminarywebsite.

United Methodist Church•• Church can happen anywhere … [United Methodist Communications] On May 11, Rethink Church will launch a new campaign called “Church Can Happen Anywhere.” We will run :30 and :15 advertising spots, so look for this message about church happening anywhere; it starts May 11 in select television areas and nationally in digital spaces. Read on.

Roman Catholic• New Jersey RC priest fired as Seton Hall chaplain comes out as gay … [RNS] A Roman Catholic priest in New Jersey who says he was dismissed from his campus ministry job over a Facebook post against anti-gay bullying and racism has come out as gay.The Rev. Warren Hall told Outsports, a magazine for gay athletes, that while he remained committed to his vocation as a priest and to his vow of celibacy, he was not going to hide his sexual orientation. Read on.

Podcasts•• If you are interested in listening to podcasts … [Bill] The following podcasts may be found with the Stitcher app. I enjoy all of them. Not in any particular order. 1. TED Radio Hour; 2. Slate's Political Gabfest; 3. The Moth Podcast; 4.This American Life; 5. Radiolab from WNYC; 6. Hourly News Summary from NPR; 7. APM: A Prairie Home Companion; 8. Fresh Air; 9. Science Friday; 10. PBS News Hour; 11. The Pulse, WHYY; 12. OnBeing with Krista Tippett; 13. 60 Minutes, CBS; 14. The Ethicists; 15. Popping Collars. More to come. If you have a favorite podcast, please tell Bill, who will tell the world.

DioBeth• Look for a Diocese of Bethlehem newsletter every Thursday … One or another newsletter is published every Thursday in the following order: (1) The Leadership News, (2) The newSpin newsletter, (3) The Diocesan e-Newsletter, (4) The newSpin newsletter.The Leadership News and the Diocesan e-Newsletter are official publications of the Diocese of Bethlehem. They include news, info, features and events relating to our diocese and parishes. Find the most recent Diocesan e-Newsletter, May 21, here. Find the most recent Leadership News, May 7, here.The newSpin newsletter is not an official publication – and will usually not duplicate news, info and features relating to our diocese and parishes found in the official newsletters. It is a relatively lengthy eclectic sampling of items related to religion – at times not, at times not so clearly – that the editor thinks readers might find to be of interest. It has been a kind of hobby of a onetime communication minister, the work of a volunteer who in retirement enjoys and dedicates time to do the research required. I always post the newSpin newsletter on the newSpin blog. If you wish to receive it by email, please send a note to Jo Trepagnier, jo@diobeth.org.

• Bethlehem Episcopalians … is a new Facebook group for conversations about mission, spirituality, Christian formation, and more. It was launched a few weeks ago and will replace the Bakery email list which has been taken down. "Bethlehem Episcopalians is an open group," wrote Archdeacon Rick Cluett, "which means that anyone can join and items that you post can be shared by group members on their own Facebook pages. This offers each of us the opportunity to reach a larger audience with news and conversations about what God is doing in our diocese." Join the Facebook group, which, as of Wednesday, May 27, includes more than 150 members.• DioBeth website• Stumbling into the Sacred... [Reflections on seeing God in the everyday by Canon Anne E. Kitch]•newSpin blog ... including the newSpin weekly by Bill Lewellis.• Facebook Page …• Facebook Group … Bethlehem Episcopalians• Twitter …• Flickr• YouTube• Vimeo• LinkedIn

SpiritSpin• The Book of Common Prayer ... every edition from 1549 to 1979. Here.• Prayers and Thanksgivings from the BCP ... Here.• The (Online) Book of Common Prayer ... Here.• The Daily Office ... can be read online in Rite I, Rite II or the New Zealand Prayer Book versions. At Mission St. Clare.• The Daily Office ... from the Diocese of Indianapolis. Here.• Daily Prayer ... a resource of Forward Movement. Here.• Holy Women, Holy Men ... Download Holy Women, Holy Men as a .pdf file.• Speaking to the Soul ... An Episcopal Café blog. Sermons, reflections, multimedia meditations and excerpts from books on spirituality. Here.• The Imitation of Christ ... Available free online.

Evangelism/Stewardship/Church Growth• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.

Media/Film/TV/Books/Podcasts/Music/Tech• Spirituality & Film ... Here.• Spirituality on DVD ... Here.• Books for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Audios for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Free eBooks by Project Gutenberg ... Here.• Free Audiobooks from LibriVox ... Here.• Free Audiobooks and eBooks ... Here and Here.• Google Books ... Millions of books you can preview or read free. Here.• The Online Books Page ... from UPenn. Here.• More free eBooks and Audiobooks ... [Techlicious] Here.• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told about your congregation, it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.• Communicate … Your Ministry, including Bill's Communication Biases and Communication-Evangelism. Here.

Religious Freedom Recap, our weekly look back at the top stories and developments on religious liberty around the world. - See more at: http://brianpellot.religionnews.com/2013/09/16/burkini-compromise-pope-hearts-atheists-dozen-muslim-march-religious-freedom-recap-sept-9-sept-16/#sthash.nA6J6Y1Y.dpuf

******************The newSpin newsletter is uploaded to the newSpin blog and posted on Bakery and on other diocesan lists of some 2,000 addresses. Many recipients forward it to others. It comes, of course, with some spin from the editor. The views expressed, implied or inferred in items or links contained in the newsletter or the blog do not represent the official view of the Diocese of Bethlehem unless expressed by or forwarded from the Bishop, the Standing Committee or the Archdeacon as an official communication. Comments are welcome on Bakery (if you are subscribed to that interactive list) and at the newSpin blog. At the newSpin blog, click in the right hand column on the title of the current newsletter. Then, make your comment below.

May 27, 2015

It is not very often that one gets to be the preacher at the Burial Office of a woman as remarkable, complicated, intelligent and amazing as Dolores White Caskey. In fact, I have dreaded having to write the epitaph for a person who had the impact on me and her world that Dolores had because whatever I say I will most likely forget a detail, a good work, an amazing speech, a kind act, an important contribution of a life lived very well.

And while my background is as a journalist, my occupation of the last 30 plus years has been as an Episcopal priest, so while my reporter instinct wants to report “the facts” and not miss one, my heart says that we all stand here this afternoon as witnesses of what a life lived with grace, gusto and yes, at times, guts, looks like.

I don’t know when I first met Dolores. I expect it was sometime in the early Spring of 1989. I had just joined the Bishop’s Staff as Social Missioner and she served on the Jubilee Committee which was the name of the Diocesan Social Justice Committee at the time. Dolores and I took an instant like to one another for which to this day I am thankful. Dolores didn’t suffer fools gladly and I would never want to be on the “outs” with her. We disagreed on some occasions, but we both knew the other’s heart and couldn’t stay cross with one another very long. We knew we were acting out of the same love of the same Lord who redeemed us.

No matter where you knew Dolores I can say that all that she did emanated from a deep faith in a God who is manifested in self-giving love. This faith did not express itself in saccharine piety, but in incarnational acts of justice, truth, mercy and love. Her faith had a very real social expression for the poor, the marginalized, the unfairly treated and the helpless.

The lessons we just heard are most fitting for a saint such as Dolores. “To everything a season and a purpose under heaven”.

She took everything in stride and even in defeat did not back down from her principles. She was a non-anxious presence when emotions were high and more smoke than light was being generated in any debate or discussion---she was part of our Church’s controversies. For her, everything did have its time and season, but truth, justice and mercy did not. Articulate, she didn’t shy away from eating your lunch when an important principle was at stake.

Dolores met her beloved husband, Jim, in the Air Force and they were both veterans and later will rightfully be laid to rest together in Arlington National Cemetery. As Jim told the story, Dolores worked in the office of a high ranking officer and she had come to his office on some official business where she asserted her rank with Jim’s secretary. Thinking Dolores had left the office, Jim made some smart comment about Dolores which she heard as she left the room and turned back on her heels and reminded Jim of who she was and whom she worked for! As Jim told it, his secretary was a shy, timid woman who one would have thought was a slight woman. Dolores would laugh at this story when Jim told it and said “Jim, your secretary was not this defenceless little person! She could have gone bear hunting with a switch!” This was just one of what I call “Dolores-isms”.

When speaking of a local politician a few years ago she said, “You ask him the time and he tells you how to build a watch!”Dolores was greatly committed to Northeast Ministry located in the Marvine-Pembroke village and she spoke one of my favorite stories about a time when drug dealing and use was an especially chronic problem on the streets of this housing project. Someone got the idea of a parade through the streets of Marvine-Pembroke to provide a counter-point to the drug dealers and support recovery and health for the residents. In order to send an anti-drug message to residents and the drug addicted of that area. Her co-board member was Victoria (Lala) Leach who was a member of the Nativity Cathedral. Lala had a yellow Cadillac convertible and Dolores and Lala rode in the parade in that car. Dolores laughed as she said, “I can’t imagine what the people thought of us in this parade. Probably something like—“O look! Those two old ladies got off the stuff and now they have a Cadillac!”

Always well put together (I rarely remember her wearing pants in public—always a dress, jewelry and make-up—even when at the Soup Kitchen!), Dolores always had the Oasis of her weekly Friday hair appointment. The day she died I happened to arrive at Dolores’s room at Moravian Village Health Center 5 minutes after her passing. As I gazed upon her lifeless body, the chaplain whispered, “Isn’t it great that the nurses aide ran in and put lipstick on her?” And sure enough, her lips were bright pink! It was great, and I can imagine Dolores somehow beholding the scene and finding great humor in it, but also a great corporal act of mercy in that act!

Dolores was a good Democrat as well. And it was because of Dolores’s advocacy with me that I switched my primary vote from Hillary Clinton to Barak Obama. We both loved John Stewart and would call each other the morning after a show and laugh about his report, but only momentarily as the issues he addressed were ones that had substance and legs.

I missed Dolores this past Tuesday when I was faced with my ballot in the primary. I counted on Dolores to give me good names to vote for in local elections and would always take (what I called) “Dolores’s List” (not to be confused with Emily’s List) into the polls on more than one occasion. As the first and scandalously only (to this day, by the way) woman President of Bethlehem City Council (ladies, you have some work to do!). Dolores once was quoted as telling the press, “Well, Bethlehem may be the Christmas City, but city council is NOT Santa Claus!”

Dolores was parsimonious. She didn’t believe that throwing lots of money at a problem necessarily solved it. She believed in balanced budgets, living within your means, and when you spend money, it had to count to relieve misery in people’s lives. This did not mean she was not generous. She supported people, causes and candidates with cash. Real money. And was generous in her support of causes she believed in and thought made a difference.

I once was Dolores and Jim’s chauffer to a rally for presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry at Allentown Fair Grounds and they would not let Jim in with his ever present little pocket knife, which I recall dutifully taking back to my car and re-joining them after we were disarmed.

I have to tell you, I will miss that “Greatest Generation” commitment to integrity in all aspects of life. I mourn the passing of that generation as I believe they were one of extreme integrity, fairness, not afraid of uphill battles and self-giving of themselves for people, movements and projects that enhanced fairness and community. They were biased toward the underdog. We Baby Boomers are poor imitators of their example.

Dolores had the tenacity of a journalist when seeking information and had an eye and a memory for important and often missed detail. She served as an advisor to diocesan publications and served many years as the Consumer Reporter at the Globe-Times in Bethlehem. One apocryphal story about that job––when she first arrived at the Globe-Times she pretended that she couldn’t type in order to be assigned a secretary to do it!

Things I recall Dolores loved:

• Chocolate and sweets of any kind, I always took them a cut of my Christmas baking in her latter years.

• Animals—dogs, cats, squirrels, even a mouse that took up residence in a storage closet off of their patio in their Moravian Village apartment and refused to let the management know of this rodent’s presence. She delighted in watching him and put nuts and seeds out for him. She also fed birds. I made sure my miniature schnauzer, Martini, visited Dolores and Jim often—her last visit with Dolores was near Christmas Eve of last year.

• She loved the beach and seashore and after Jim died got her aide to drive her there. That may have been her last visit.

• She loved breakfast at Jenny’s Luncheonette before it was razed to make way for a new access to the Hill-To-Hill bridge—and tipped her waitresses handsomely.

• She loved the poor, the underdog, the rejected for no fault of their own and anyone being given a raw deal by government, church or social structures.

• She loved the 1928 Prayer Book AND the 1979 revision and both were near her whenever I visited. She liked the confession in Morning Prayer, and the Prayer for Humble Access. She prayed.

She had her dislikes as well:

• She disliked hypocrisy, privilege which blinded to human need. Using the phrase “greedy geezers” to describe some of her peer’s attitude toward discounts, Social Security, Medicare and other benefits.

• She disliked using more medical care than she thought was warranted for people “living on an expired warranty” as she and Jim would say.

(I am sure you can share others with me later in the parish hall as there are hundreds of ways she impacted and inspired all of us)

So what is the take away for us that she leaves behind? What is it that is for us in this room this afternoon?

I believe one of the take aways is that Christian faith can take us to places we never thought we’d be. It can put us in partnership with people very different from us. We are convicted by the witness of her life that our actions should reflect our commitments. Her work for anti-racism is exemplary, she served on the first HIV-AIDS Task Force of the Diocese in the early 90’s and served on a board to develop a personal care home for persons living with HIV-AIDS. Before a plethora of Spanish Speaking interpreters, she would be the middle person to translate for the courts when a Spanish speaking defendant appeared before a Northampton County judge.

There are no outcasts, save the well-funded and privileged who have hard hearts toward the perceived outcast. But even they can repent and be welcomed back.

She saw the blessedness in all of the things we try mightily to insulate ourselves from—mourning, being peacemakers, poverty of life and spirit, mercy, hungering for justice and an even playing field; and putting ourselves on the line for it (even when it means rejection and vilification).

She taught me how to age. To never disengage from life and justice seeking, no matter what your age or physical capability. Always get the news and talk about it!

I hope we can all take comfort and challenge in the life Dolores exemplified. And Michael, David, Robert, Mimi, you and your offspring can look to her as an example for your own lives and be inspired by how she inspired many of us!

Scott Holland a 19th Century Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University wrote the following which I think a fitting last word today, and one I know Dolores would probably affirm:

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched and unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is dath but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind just because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. All is well.

Dolores, my good friend, you have finished the race, you have competed very well. And I am certain that you will receive the crown of glory reserved just for you!

May 15, 2015

• Look for a Diocese of Bethlehem newsletter every Thursday … [Bill] One or another newsletter is published every Thursday in the following order: (1) The Leadership News, (2) The newSpin newsletter, (3) TheDiocesan e-Newsletter, (4) ThenewSpin newsletter. The Leadership News and the Diocesan e-Newsletter are official publications of the Diocese of Bethlehem. They include news, info, features and events relating to our diocese and parishes. Find the most recent Diocesan e-Newsletter, April 23, here. Find the most recent Leadership News, May 7, here. The newSpin newsletter is not an official publication – and will usually not duplicate news, info and features relating to our diocese and parishes found in the official newsletters. It is a relatively lengthy eclectic sampling of items related to religion – at times not, at times not so clearly – that the editor things readers might find to be of interest. It has been a kind of hobby of a onetime communication minister, the work of a volunteer who in retirement enjoys and dedicates time to do the research required. I always post the newSpin newsletter on the newSpin blog. If you wish to receive it by email, please send a note to Jo Trepagnier, jo@diobeth.org.

• Four chosen as nominees for presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church … [ENS]The Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of the Presiding Bishop May 1 announced the names of the bishops it will nominate this summer to succeed Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. The four names will be formally submitted to the General Convention during a joint session on June 26, the day prior to the day set for the election by the House of Bishops of the 27th presiding bishop. The nominees are: The Rt. Rev. Thomas Breidenthal, 64, Diocese of Southern Ohio; The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, 62, Diocese of North Carolina; The Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas, 56, Diocese of Connecticut; The Rt. Rev. Dabney Smith, 61, Diocese of Southwest Florida. Read on. The JNCPB will shortly release additional information from each of the nominees. Each nominee has responded to questions about his vision for the church, which will be posted to the General Convention website soon. Additionally, each nominee made himself available for a video interview. These will also be made available soon.

• Christians lose ground, ‘nones’ soar in new portrait of US religion … [RNS, Cathy Lynn Grossman] The United States is a significantly less Christian country than it was seven years ago. That’s the top finding — one that will ricochet through American faith, culture and politics — in the Pew Research Center’s newest report, “America’s Changing Religious Landscape,” released Tuesday (May 12). This trend “is big, it’s broad and it’s everywhere,” said Alan Cooperman, Pew’s director of religion research. Christianity still dominates American religious identity (70 percent), but the survey shows dramatic shifts as more people move out the doors of denominations, shedding spiritual connections along the way. Atheists and agnostics have nearly doubled their share of the religious marketplace, and overall indifference to religion of any sort is rising as well. Among the larger Christian bodies, only the historically black Protestant churches have held a steady grip through the years of change … Where are they going? To religious nowhere. The nones — Americans who are unaffiliated with brand-name religion — are the new major force in American faith. And they are more secular in outlook — and “more comfortable admitting it” than ever before, said John Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. Their growth spans the generations, as well as racial and ethnic groups, said Green, a senior fellow in religion and American politics for the Pew Research Center. Nones, at 22.8 percent of the U.S. (up from 16 just eight years ago) run second only to evangelicals (25.4 percent) and ahead of Catholics (20.8 percent) in religious market share. Read on. Read analysis also at The Upshot, NYTimes.

• Liberation theology's founder, Dominican priest Gustavo Gutierrez, basks in a belated relationship under Pope Francis … [David Gibson, RNS, May 7] It used to be that just saying the words “liberation theology” around Catholics was enough to start a schism-level fight, or at least raise a red flag in Rome. The theological movement that focused on the poor emerged out of the church’s social justice ferment in the 1960s, but it was always viewed by conservatives as an irredeemably Marxist version of the gospel. Worse, they said it was a tool of Soviet communists who were using the Roman Catholic Church to foment revolution in Latin America and beyond, and at the very height of the Cold War. Read on.

• A pastor’s faith in Baltimore … [WaPo, Michael Gerson, Op-Ed, April 30] The Rev. Dr. Frank Reid III, one of the most respected religious figures in Baltimore, locates the Baltimore violence in a broader context. Read on.

• Want millennials back in the pews? Stop trying to make church ‘cool.’ … [Rachel Held Evans, WaPo, Op-Ed, April 30] Young people dont simply want a better show. And trying to be cool might be making things worse. Read on.

• The Faustian bargain between church and state … [The Atlantic] To receive tax-exempt status from the IRS, religious organizations must abstain from electioneering. Is that constitutional? Read on.

• Don't expect pictures of this 'first' … [Commonweal, Letter from Rome, Robert Mickens] "For the first time ever a woman bishop has been welcomed inside the Apostolic Palace for an official meeting with pope. But don’t expect to find any photos in the Vatican’s official newspaper. L’Osservatore Romano buried within its pages a brief, picture-less article of Pope Francis’ high-level meeting on Monday with Lutheran Archbishop Antje Jackelén of Uppsala, the first woman to head the Church of Sweden. It seems the Centro Televisivo Vaticano (CTV) and the Vatican’s You Tube channel also tried to prevent any widespread distribution of visual images of the gathering—especially of the pope and Archbishop Jackelén greeting one another." Read on. Episcopal/Anglican• Bishops United Against Gun Viocence plans prayerful procession at General Convention … 61 bishops are planning an outdoor procession on Sunday morning, June 28, during General Convention. News release here. Member of the group here.

• Patrick Malloy leaving General Seminary ... [Episcopal Café] The Reverend Dr. Patrick Malloy, Professor Liturgy at General Theological Seminary, has announced he will be leaving New York to take the position of interim dean at St. John’s Cathedral in Denver, Colorado. Malloy was one of the eight professors dismissed (later reinstated) last fall following a work stoppage protesting the new dean and president, the Reverend Kurt H. Dunkle. Malloy has also been serving as Theologian-in-Residence at St. John on the Mountain in Bernardsville, N.J. [Those who are relatively new to the Diocese of Bethlehem may not know the local angle. Malloy served as priest-in-charge, then rector of Grace Allentown from 2001 to 2011. For the last two years there, he was also a professor at General Seminary.] Malloy came to General in 2009 as the Professor of Liturgy. Malloy has taught at St. John’s University, Collegeville; the University of Santa Clara, California; and Duquesne University, where he was the director of the ecumenical graduate program in pastoral ministry. During his doctoral work, he was on the staff of the Notre Dame Center for Pastoral Liturgy. He also worked for five years with an affiliate of the New York Times in national leadership development. Dr. Malloy is a member of the General Board of Examining Chaplains, and sits on the Board of the Anglican Theological Review. From 2010-2012, he was chair of the task force charged with gathering liturgical resources for the blessing of same-sex unions for presentation at the 2012 General Convention. Fr. Malloy began as a Roman Catholic and was ordained a deacon in that Church. In 1991, he joined the Episcopal Church and in 2001 was ordained to the presbyterate by Bishop Paul Marshall of Bethlehem, a ThD graduate of General. Read on.

• Grace Cathedral San Francisco picks new dean … [SFGate] The Rev.Malcolm Clemens Young, a UC Berkeley- and Harvard-trained theologian and an authority on the life of author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau, has been appointed the next dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Rector at Christ Church in Los Altos for the past 14 years, he will become dean Aug. 1. The selection of Young as the ninth dean of the famed church atop Nob Hill ends a six-month search for a leader to replace Dean Jane Shaw. She is leaving to become dean for religious life at Stanford University. Young, 48, holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from UC Berkeley and a master’s of divinity and doctorate of theology from Harvard University. Read on.

Dual actions end Heather Cook’s ordained ministry, employment … [ENS] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori announced May 1 that she and Episcopal Diocese of Maryland Bishop Suffragan Heather Cook have reached an agreement that removes her from the ordained ministry of The Episcopal Church; moreover, that announcement came on the same day that Cook resigned her diocesan post. Read on.

SpiritSpin• Jubilate – Pentecost 2015 (B) … Jubilate is a gift of the Diocese of Bethlehem to the Episcopal and Anglican world through the kindness and talent of Canon Cliff Carr who has been doing this for more than 30 years. Thank you, Cliff. Download Jubilate Pentecost B 2015

• Turning Toward Home, from the Cathedral pilgrimage to Wales … [Rick Cluett, May 11] As we round the last bend on this Pilgrim Road and turn our sights toward Bethlehem and home, I am literally overcome with gratitude for this pilgrim journey. Growing in me over these last years has been an increasing awareness of God's presence in the dailyness of life and and in the daily lives of God's people. My readings in the spirituality of our early Celtic ancestors had been leading me along this path. But this, this pilgrimage of heart, body, mind and soul in the company of other faithful souls has allowed me to literally stand in the place of ancient Cistercian missionaries who brought our faith to these lands and to stand in the places of the people themselves who throughout all these centuries have known and felt and celebrated God's presence in their waking, working, praying, and resting and kept the faith alive. On this journey, we pilgrims have known God's presence leading us deeper and deeper into our place as children of God and God's place and presence in our daily lives. And to have that affirmed by all these souls over all these centuries has been a pure gift of God, as well as a gift of those we love, live and work with who said to us, Go. Yes, go, and then blessed us on our way. To them, to God, to my fellow pilgrim companions and to the dean who led us, Thank you.• The centripetal force of life … [kottke.org, Jason Kottke] I don't quite know what I'm doing to myself these days. Last night was an episode of The Americans in which a marriage was ending, another family was trying to keep itself intact, and a young boy struggles to move on after his entire family dies. This morning, I watched an episode of Mad Men in which a mother tries to reconcile her differences with her daughter in the face of impending separation. And then, the absolute cake topper, a story by Matthew Teague that absolutely wrecked me. It's about his cancer-stricken wife and the friend who comes and rescues an entire family, which is perhaps the truest and most direct thing I've ever read about cancer and death and love and friendship. Read on.

• JFK on Poetry, Power, and the Artist’s Role in Society … [Brain Pickings] His eulogy for Robert Frost is one of the greatest speeches of all time. "If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth… In free society art is not a weapon and it does not belong to the spheres of polemic and ideology. Artists are not engineers of the soul. It may be different elsewhere. But democratic society — in it, the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may. In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation. And the nation which disdains the mission of art invites the fate of Robert Frost’s hired man, the fate of having 'nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope.' Read or listen here.

•• Education for Ministry … [Cathy Bailey] Every baptized person is called to ministry. The Education for Ministry (EfM) program, offered as an education at-a-distance course by the School of Theology of the University of the South at Sewanee, provides Episcopalians and others with the education to carry out that ministry. Lay persons face the difficult and often subtle task of interpreting the richness of the church's faith in a complex and confusing world. As the Church continues to emphasize the importance of lay ministry, many laypersons have come to feel that they need a theological education that supports their faith and also teaches them to express that faith in day-to-day events. EfM is one way for them to gain that knowledge. EfM offers a four-year course, covering the basic subjects of a theological education: Old Testament, New Testament, Church History, and Theological Choices (a study of theological trends and movements in the Church). Participants register for one year at a time. Students meet locally in seminar groups of six to twelve participants and a trained mentor, who meet weekly for two to three hours during a nine-month academic year. Participants are given weekly assignments to study with the help of resource guides. In the seminars, members have an opportunity to share their insights and discoveries as well as to discuss questions which the study materials raise for them through discussion and guided reflection. By examining their own beliefs and their relationship to our culture and the tradition of our Christian faith, participants can learn what it means to be effective ministers in the world. The seminar is supported by a life of prayer and regular worship. EfM groups are encouraged to develop a pattern of worship appropriate to their situations. Liturgical materials are furnished with the course materials. The current one-year fee per student is $350, which pays for EfM materials and an honorarium for the mentor. EfM grants 18 Continuing Education Units (CEU) for each year of study. There are no examinations or papers. EfM does not grant college credits. For more about EfM visit its website at efm.sewanee.edu. Contact Cathy Bailey, Diocesan EfM Coordinator at cbnnp@rcn.com for more information.

• Spirit Resources ... way below.

Columns, Sermons, Reflections and other Spin

•• Your sermon? … If you have a sermon you might like uploaded to the newSpin blog and linked to from the newSpin newsletter, point bill.lewellis@gmail.com to it online.

• How Racism doomed Baltimore … [NYTimes editorial board, May 9] The Baltimore riots threw a spotlight on the poverty and isolation of the African-American community where the unrest began last month. The problems were underscored on Friday when the Justice Department, in response to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s request, started an investigation of the Police Department, which has an egregious history of brutality and misconduct. Other cities are plagued by the same difficulties, but they have proved especially intractable in Baltimore. A new study from Harvard offers evidence that Baltimore is perhaps the worst large city in the country when measured by a child’s chances of escaping poverty. … Americans might think of Maryland as a Northern state, but it was distinctly Southern in its attitudes toward race. … The tensions associated with segregation and concentrated poverty place many cities at risk of unrest. But the acute nature of segregation in Baltimore — and the tools that were developed to enforce it over such a long period of time — have left an indelible mark and given that city a singular place in the country’s racial history. Read on.

• Despite DNA, the rapist got away …[Nicholas Kristof, NYTimes, May 9] Her family rushed her to the hospital, where she endured hours of humiliating scrutiny as nurses collected a rape kit: DNA, hairs, fibers, anything that could be found on her body. The police took a statement from Natasha and picked up the rape kit from the hospital. Then they did nothing. For years. Read on.

Where Religion, Culture and Politics Might Intersect• Have faith groups been too absent in the fight on poverty? … [WaPo, Michelle Boorstein] It’s a core tenet of most religions to help the needy, right? Faith groups in recent decades, however, have been caught up in the same polarization as the rest of the country on issues of class, race and politics, making it difficult for them to lead on reducing poverty. Read on.

• In frank language, Obama addresses poverty's roots … [WaPo, Juliet Eilperin and Michelle Boorstein] President Obama said Tuesday the racial segregation that once marked American society has been replaced by “class segregation,” a division that members of both parties need to address urgently.Speakinga panel at Georgetown University, Obama said Americans are “at a moment... where it may be possible not only to refocus attention on the issue of poverty, but also maybe to bridge some of the gaps that have existed and the ideological divides that have prevented us from making progress.” “The stereotype is that you’ve got folks on the left who just want to pour more money into social programs, and don’t care anything about culture or parenting or family structures,” Obama said, speaking onstage with Harvard University political scientist Robert Putnam, American Enterprise Institute President Arthur C. Brooks and the discussion’s moderator, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. “And then you’ve got cold-hearted, free market, capitalist types who are reading Ayn Rand and think everybody are moochers. And I think the truth is more complicated.”

In the Media• I've Been Haunted by Screens … [Bill Lewellis, The Morning Call, May 2] I've been haunted –fascinated – by screens: movie screens, television screens, computer screens. For a long time, as the following example suggests. "Long ago, rain fell on mud and became rock … half a billion years ago … but even before that … beneath the rocks … are the words of God. Listen." Those who have seen the beautiful 1992 film directed by Robert Redford, A River Runs Through It, based on Norman Maclean's book, may remember this opening scene where Maclean's father, a Presbyterian minister and seasoned fly fisherman, bends down to the height of his two young sons with a river stone between his fingers. In the closing scene, a narrator speaks over striking images of nature: "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs." Read on here or here. Rest in Peace•• Memorial Service for Dolores Caskey … [Laura Howell] will be held on Saturday, May 23 at 2:00 p.m. in Trinity Church, Bethlehem. Calling hour at 1:00.

• Brother Andrew Colquhoun, 77 … We are sad to announce that Br. James Andrew Colquhoun died on May 6 in Kingston, New York. Br. Robert Sevensky, superior of the Order of the Holy Cross, writes, "Andrew was 77 years old. He entered the Order of the Holy Cross in 1989 and made his life profession in 1994. A priest of the Church, Andrew was ordained in 1984 after serving as a minister for many years in the Presbyterian/Reformed tradition and as a hospital chaplain and CPE supervisor. He was canonically resident in the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem. As a member of the Order, Andrew served in many capacities, including as Prior of Holy Cross Monastery, West Park. Perhaps the crown of his vocation was the twelve years he spent in South Africa. Andrew went there in 1998 as one of the three founding brothers of the Order's monastery and school in Grahamstown and served faithfully and tirelessly." May Br. Andrew rest in peace and rise in glory. More here.

• Robert E. Jones … [The Morning Call] Onetime senior warden at the Church of the Mediator, Allentown. Obituary.

• B.B. King, 89 … [NYTimes] B. B. King, whose world-weary voice and wailing guitar lifted him from the cotton fields of Mississippi to a global stage and the apex of American blues, died on Thursday, May 14, at his home in Las Vegas. He married country blues to big-city rhythms and created a sound instantly recognizable to millions: a stinging guitar with a shimmering vibrato, notes that coiled and leapt like an animal, and a voice that groaned and bent with the weight of lust, longing and lost love. Read on. Associated Press obituary here.

TaleSpin

• Homosexuality: 'A pernicious sickness' … [LGBTQNATION] “Even in purely nonreligious terms, homosexuality represents a misuse of the sexual faculty and, in the words of one Catholic educator, of 'human construction.' It is a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life. As such it deserves fairness, compassion, understanding and, when possible, treatment. But it deserves no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, no fake status as minority martyrdom, no sophistry about simple differences in taste—and, above all, no pretense that it is anything but a pernicious sickness.” Read on. The quote is the conclusion of a two-page essay in Time Magazine, circa 1966, titled The Homosexual in America. How far we have come.

•• The state of storytelling in the internet age … [ReadThisThing] Great stories are reaching more people than ever, and the web is giving the world a better platform to tell stories than ever. But news divisions are still shrinking, great publications are still failing, and journalists are telling our youth to avoid the profession. Read on.

• How a pioneer of branding invented Christian fundamentalism … [Religion Dispatches] Christian fundamentalism was invented in an advertising campaign, according to a new book by historian Timothy Gloege. The all-American brand of “old-time religion” was developed by an early captain of consumer capitalism—who wanted to sell pure Christianity like he sold breakfast. In his fascinating narrative of the origins of modern evangelicalism, Gloege traces its close relationship to modern marketing back to the founder of Quaker Oats, Henry Parsons Crowell. Read on.

• Pope's family story fuel his passion for immigrants and the poor … [Crux] Since his election, Francis has made solidarity with the poor and the defense of immigrants his towering priorities. While any pope would embrace those positions, since they loom large in Catholic social teaching, Francis seems to feel a special biographical tug. He rarely misses an opportunity to press the case. Read on.

BackSpin – Do you remember?•• Jubilee Diocese[Diocesan Life, January 1995] The National Jubilee Committee awarded the Diocese of Bethlehem the unique designation of "Jubilee Diocese." Bethlehem became the first diocese to receive this unique designation to recognize efforts on the part of the diocesan community to encourage and support local congregations in their ministry to serve poor and marginalized people. A grant of $25,000 accompanied the designation. "We are forming a partnership with this diocese," said Ntsiki Kabane-Langford, Jubilee Officer of the Episcopal Church. "We are hopeful that this partnership will provide a dynamic model for the whole church."

• "So many people[Diocesan Life, January 1995] want to wrap everything up before they die," wrote Marius Bressoud in the first of five monthly columns on Spirituality and Aging.

Evangelical Lutheran Church NEPA Synod website ... Here. ELCA website ... Here. ELCA News Service ... Here. ELCA's blogs may be found here. See especially "Web and Multimedia Development."Spirit Spinning ... for those who hunger and thirst for a deeper connection with God ... Here.

Moravian ChurchMoravian Church in North Americawebsite. Moravian Church Northern Provincewebsite. Moravian Theological Seminarywebsite.

United Methodist Church• United Methodist Church raises millions in small donations to fight malaria … [HuffPost]The United Methodist Church gave $9.6 million on Wednesday to the Global Fund, a health-focused nonprofit based in Geneva, to help the group fight malaria. It was the single largest contribution to the fund by a faith organization, and was made possible largely through grassroots efforts by congregants.Local fundraising efforts, ranging from lemonade stands to car washes to 5K runs, provided the bulk of the sum, Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton told The Huffington Post, with the average contribution amounting to just $ 87.31. Read on.

• Church can happen anywhere … [United Methodist Communications] On May 11, Rethink Church will launch a new campaign called “Church Can Happen Anywhere.” We will run :30 and :15 advertising spots, so look for this message about church happening anywhere; it starts May 11 in select television areas and nationally in digital spaces. Read on.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ... Here. Catholic News Service ...Here.

The Vatican• Junipero Serra to be canonized, despite controversy … [AP] The Vatican's saint-making office has officially given its thumbs up for the Rev. Junipero Serra to be declared a saint — four months after Pope Francis announced he would canonize the controversial 18th-century missionary during his upcoming visit to the United States. Serra is hailed by the Catholic Church as a great evangelizer who established 21 missions across California. Many Native Americans, though, accuse him of forced conversions, enslaving converts and helping wipe out indigenous populations as part of the European colonization machine in the Americas. Read on. Also, Questionable Choice, by John Quinn at The Tablet. He quotes the San Francisco Chronicle: "The missions were little more than concentration camps where California's Indians were beaten, whipped, maimed, burned, tortured and virtually exterminated by the friars.” The paper's claims might prove difficult to reconcile with Pope Francis’ comments about Serra’s “holiness” and “saintly example”.

Podcasts•• If you are interested in listening to podcasts …[Bill] The following podcasts may be found with the Stitcher app. I enjoy all of them. Not in any particular order. 1. TED Radio Hour; 2. Slate's Political Gabfest; 3. The Moth Podcast; 4.This American Life; 5. Radiolab from WNYC; 6. Hourly News Summary from NPR; 7. APM: A Prairie Home Companion; 8. Fresh Air; 9. Science Friday; 10. PBS News Hour; 11. The Pulse, WHYY; 12. OnBeing with Krista Tippett; 13. 60 Minutes, CBS; 14. The Ethicists; 15. Popping Collars. More to come. If you have a favorite podcast, please tell Bill, who will tell the world.

• No ghost in the machine: Anti-humanism of 'Ex Machina' makes it the post-Christian film of the year … [RNS, Jay Michaelson] Alex Garland’s artificial-intelligence thriller “Ex Machina” has already been called, by just about everyone, the “sleeper hit of the summer.” And it’s easy to see why: The film is taut, stylish, sexy and decked out with seriously creepy and understated computer-generated images. It’s also perhaps the best metaphysical musing on transhumanism that Hollywood has ever produced, and a radically anti-religious film. In a good way. Read on.

• The most common reasons your computer is slowing down … [Techlicious] and the simple measures you can take to get its groove back. Here.

• Resources … below.

VariaSpin• Money is going out of style in Denmark … [Ozy] Copenhagen is banking on plastic. It has proposed that some retailers, gas stations and restaurants no longer be forced to accept cash, relying instead on credit card or mobile payments. Currency is already less popular with Danes than more modern methods, and the measure — despite fears that the elderly or digitally deprived will suffer — isn’t expected to meet serious opposition in parliament. It’s likely to be approved and take effect next January, before possibly being extended to other businesses. Quartz

SpiritSpin• The Book of Common Prayer ... every edition from 1549 to 1979. Here.• Prayers and Thanksgivings from the BCP ... Here.• The (Online) Book of Common Prayer ... Here.• The Daily Office ... can be read online in Rite I, Rite II or the New Zealand Prayer Book versions. At Mission St. Clare.• The Daily Office ... from the Diocese of Indianapolis. Here.• Daily Prayer ... a resource of Forward Movement. Here.• Holy Women, Holy Men ... Download Holy Women, Holy Men as a .pdf file.• Speaking to the Soul ... An Episcopal Café blog. Sermons, reflections, multimedia meditations and excerpts from books on spirituality. Here.• The Imitation of Christ ... Available free online.

Evangelism/Stewardship/Church Growth• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.

Media/Film/TV/Books/Podcasts/Music/Tech• Spirituality & Film ... Here.• Spirituality on DVD ... Here.• Books for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Audios for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Free eBooks by Project Gutenberg ... Here.• Free Audiobooks from LibriVox ... Here.• Free Audiobooks and eBooks ... Here and Here.• Google Books ... Millions of books you can preview or read free. Here.• The Online Books Page ... from UPenn. Here.• More free eBooks and Audiobooks ... [Techlicious] Here.• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told about your congregation, it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.• Communicate … Your Ministry, includingBill's Communication Biases and Communication-Evangelism. Here.

Religious Freedom Recap, our weekly look back at the top stories and developments on religious liberty around the world. - See more at: http://brianpellot.religionnews.com/2013/09/16/burkini-compromise-pope-hearts-atheists-dozen-muslim-march-religious-freedom-recap-sept-9-sept-16/#sthash.nA6J6Y1Y.dpuf

******************The newSpin newsletter is uploaded to the newSpin blog and posted on Bakery and on other diocesan lists of some 2,000 addresses. Many recipients forward it to others. It comes, of course, with some spin from the editor. The views expressed, implied or inferred in items or links contained in the newsletter or the blog do not represent the official view of the Diocese of Bethlehem unless expressed by or forwarded from the Bishop, the Standing Committee or the Archdeacon as an official communication. Comments are welcome on Bakery (if you are subscribed to that interactive list) and at the newSpin blog. At the newSpin blog, click in the right hand column on the title of the current newsletter. Then, make your comment below.

Current through mid-summer list below. Note: Goes through Proper 11 on July 19)-ignore date on campaign listing. Thanks.Blessings, Jan Charney for the DSCDiocese of Bethlehem Stewardship Commission

The Day of Pentecost Psalm104 says in part "All of them look to you to give them their food in due season. You give it to them...you open your hand and they are filled with good things." How's that for a faithful steward's reason to always and everywhere give thanks? God gives us everything we have - how can we thank Him adequately except by returning a faithful share of all those gifts to Him and to others in His name?

Trinity Sunday For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life. If we believe in Him, He will know that by the lives we live, and the thanks we give for that (as the 1928 BCP says) inestimable gift - and that's what stewardship is all about!

The Season of Pentecost(Note: Check for correct dates for each Proper, since, depending on the dates of Easter, Pentecost, and Trinity, they may fall differently from year to year....i.e., the first Sunday after Trinity may be any of Propers 3*, 4, 5, or 6 - depending on how early Easter falls. * If there is a Proper 3 scheduled, the Proper for the 8th Sunday after Epiphany is used.

Proper 5 "O God, from whom all good proceeds...". If, therefore, all the good in our lives comes from God, how can we best be grateful and thankful for our many blessings? Perhaps the Holy Habits of prayer, scripture study, active participation in our parish community, care for others, and generous giving can help us reflect that "good-ness" to others.

Proper 6 The mustard seed - smallest of the seeds on earth. Yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes the greatest of all the shrubs, and serves others as a haven. Were our lives as stewards sown as small as the mustard seed, and have they grown and blossomed as we hear God's voice? Do we thank Him for His gifts, and do we seek to serve Him in others?

Proper 7 When Jesus awakes and calms the sea, he says to the Disciples, "Why are you afraid? Have you no faith? Good questions for the reluctant steward. Why are we so afraid to return to God a generous portion - but just a portion - of what he has so lovingly given us - everything!

Proper 8 The woman who in desperation believed if only she could touch Jesus she would be healed was right. Jesus saw her faith and freed her from her years of (in those days) shameful illness. Those of us who can no longer touch Jesus in the flesh have no less claim to His promise to heal us (perhaps in a different way than we expected) - but we need to believe, believe, believe, and trust in His promises!

Proper 9 Mark's Gospel says Jesus ordered the disciples to take nothing for their journey - no bread, no bag, no money, no extra clothes, etc. What a venture of trust in God and other people He was asking them to begin! Our commitment to the faithful stewardship of all we have been given should seem a small task in comparison.

Proper 10 Ephesians says in part..."In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace he lavished on us..." Can we even begin to comprehend the riches of his grace freely given to us, and if we do, will we commit to a life of service and thankfulness for those many gifts?

Proper 11 Jesus recognizes that the disciples may be in danger of what we today call "burnout". He urges them to "come aside... and rest awhile." What kind of resting stewardship do we practice in our own hectic or otherwise complicated lives? How much quiet time do we give to God in prayer, study, and meditation to help us "recharge our spiritual batteries" and continue in faithful, loving service to the God who has given us all?

Proper 12 The miracle of the loaves and fishes parable is a reminder for all of us attempting to be good stewards, that if we have faith, God will provide far more than we need - and help us to fulfill the needs of others in His name as well.

Here's a Grace for Meals you might like to use as a reminder in the coming week. "Christ in the wilderness five thousand fed, with two small fishes and five loaves of bread. May the God above who made that division, descend upon us and our provision. Amen."

Jubilate – Pentecost 2015 (B) … Jubilate is a gift of the Diocese of Bethlehem to the Episcopal and Anglican world through the kindness and talent of Canon Cliff Carr who has been doing this for more than 30 years. Thank you, Cliff.

May 09, 2015

Brother Andrew Colquhoun died on May 6, at Kingston Hospital, Kingston NY. He was 77 years old.

[Brother Robert Sevensky, Superior, Order of the Holy Cross] Andrew entered the Order of the Holy Cross in 1989 and made his life profession in 1994. A priest of the Church, Andrew was ordained in 1984 after serving as a minister for many years in the Presbyterian/Reformed tradition and as a hospital chaplain and CPE supervisor.

As a member of the Order, Andrew served in many capacities, including as Prior of Holy Cross Monastery, West Park. Perhaps the crown of his vocation was the twelve years he spent in South Africa. Andrew went there in 1998 as one of the three founding brothers of the Order's monastery and school in Grahamstown and served faithfully and tirelessly.

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[Canon Anne Kitch] Andrew was canonically resident in the Diocese of Bethlehem and was once a CPE supervisor in the Lehigh Valley. Br. Andrew was a mentor to me when I was in the Diocese of New York and I visited the monastery regularly. I last saw him at General Convention in 2012, where he offered his gentle presence and wisdom as a chaplain. He was also known for his grace as a celtic harper.

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[Canon Andrew Gerns] We remember Brother Andrew fondly at Trinity, Easton, where at one time he was a member and an associate priest. He was a chaplain and CPE Supervisor at Easton Hospital as well as a spiritual guide to many. The Communion Set that he gave Easton Hospital is now in use in the Chapel at Trinity after that facility ended formal pastoral care services. Many from our parish continued to make their way to Hyde Park for his wise and gentle humor and spiritual counsel.

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[Father John Major] Several of our diocesan clergy were with Brother Andrew on retreat not long ago. I will remember those moments of prayer and gathering and prize his charity and wisdom always.

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[Jan Charney] Another break in the memory quilt... He was The Rev. Jim Colquhoon when we first met him in Easton, so it took a while to get used to the "Andrew" change. He did so much to build the Pastoral Care department at Easton Hospital, and was loved and admired by many. It was he who encouraged me to take CPE as a layperson - and it was a life-enriching experience indeed. (He was the one who told me that I didn't always need a Prayer Book to pray - my own words would do just fine, thank you.) He, and the Rev. Allan Kramer-Moyer developed a solid core of volunteer Chaplains - mostly lay folks-who covered evenings from 5 PM to 8 AM daily, a ministry that continued until the Dept. was closed. I have memories of 20 years of those nights, and some wonderful and touching stories. We attended both of his vow-takings at Holy Cross, and though not in touch so much recently, thought of him especially when his name came up in our Prayers of the People as someone who was praying for those of us at Trinity. He had a wicked sense of humor, and was not known to suffer fools gladly, but was also wise and compassionate in a multitude of ways. And now, we can pray for him in a new way in his new life. May he rest in peace and rise in the glory he so deserves.

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[Archdeacon Rick Cluett] This is very sad news for all of us who have known, been touched by, or loved Brother Andrew. More than 30 years ago this wonderful Scot came to the Lehigh Valley as priest, pastor, and chaplain. While here he discovered his call to a monastic vocation, and the rest as they say, is history - a beautiful history of service offered and love given to countless numbers of people. Straight talker, witty, profound, loving, wise, and courageous. I am blessed and grateful to have been with him from time to time on his journey that has now brought him safely home. Thanks be to God for the life and ministry of Brother Andrew Colquhoun, OHC.

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[Father T. Scott Allen] I am sad to hear of Jim's (Andrew's) passing. Another light has gone out in the Church militant. I recall meeting with him when I first came back to the diocese in 2000 and his pastoral counsel he gave me as a formerly married Dad, a priest and a gay man. I shall always cherish his memory as one who spoke the Word of truth and Gospel in gentle and confident ways. May he truly rest in peace and rise in glory!

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[Linda Gallagher] A very long time ago, very early in the AIDS epidemic, Father Andrew, who was known as Father Jim Colqhoun at that time, visited with a gay man who was a patient at Sacred Heart Hospital. Do to fear and lack of information the young man's food trays were left on the floor outside his room. No one wanted to enter the room. Father Andrew visited, fed him, bathed him and wept as he died. At the funeral service, I believe there were four of us present, he spoke with his gentle Scottish lilt as he proclaimed the Gospel. He read from Isaiah--they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles,they shall run and not be weary . . . . I believe he was a Holy Man, he saw the world with the eyes of God. Rest in peace, dear friend.

The sad truth is, riots are a part of American history. The sad fact is, riots are probably going to be a part of America’s future.

As we watched and read about the events that unfolded in Baltimore this week, a lot of things were said.

Many condemned the police for their treatment of minorities. Many condemned the rioters for their use of violence.

Debates raged about failed economic policies, and unjust civil structures. About the negative consequence of violent protest over nonviolent demonstration.

People from across the political spectrum weighed in. People of all races, and economic status, commented.

Some applauded, while others condemned. Some demanded progressive change in our society, others called for a return to conservative values.

Police from neighboring cities and states came to the aid of the city of Baltimore. Maryland sent in the national guard. Religious leaders and community organizers gathered and marched.

Night after night, this country watched with a collectively held breath, waiting to see if one of our cities, would erupt into more violence, and more flames.

The discussions surrounding the Baltimore riots are hard ones to have. But, they are important. We need to, as a society, talk about what has happened, and what caused these events. We need to openly talk about them, so that we cannot just move on from this, but work to see that it does not happen again.

A danger in these discussions, is to break down, and condense things into statistics and figures. Names and faces become meaningless. People no longer are people, but they become numbers. They lose their shape and being.

Numbers upon numbers, that competing sides crunch and compile.

Numbers upon numbers, that competing sides quote to build and construct their own preferred narrative.

To do this keeps us from going deeper into the problems and issues. To do this keeps us separated from the real dilemma. It keeps us separated from one another.

Our readings for today help to point us to the deeper issues at work here. Points us to a deeper truth we need to see.

Jesus is the one true vine. And we are the branches of that vine. A branch separated from that vine, does not and can not bear fruit. A branch separated from the vine withers and dies.

Last week we heard this same message, with different imagery. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. There is one shepherd for one flock. Without that shepherd, the sheep are snatched up, and scattered.

Vine and branches, flock and shepherd.

Jesus is our source. Jesus is our foundation. It is by Jesus that we are created. It is by Jesus that we are sustained. It is by Jesus that we are redeemed.

If we do not abide in him, and he in us, we are nothing. We are dried up branches. We are scattered and lost sheep. If we do not abide in Jesus and he in us, we lack the very essence of our being. We have no foundation.

Without Jesus, we lack that thing which lifts us up and redeems us. Without him, we fall into sin and death. Darkness and despair. We lack the light of Christ, which illuminates, and lifts up all of humanity.

We need to stop seeing others as statistics and demographics or figures from failed urban and civic policies. When we reduce them down we take away their humanity. When we have taken away their humanity, we have severed our connection with them.

We begin to sever the branches from the vine. We scatter the sheep from the flock. Sheep separated from the flock cannot survive. Branches separated from the vine cannot thrive. They cannot grow. They wither up and die.

By abiding in Jesus we abide in his divine and eternal love. And that love teaches us that we are all children of God.

That love placed Jesus on the cross for us all. That love raised Jesus from the dead. That love lifted him into eternal life. That is the love we are called to abide in. A love that changes us to our very core. A love that completes our very being. A love that illuminates humanity, and lifts it up.

Jesus calls us to go deeper in our relationships with each other. If we do not do that, we dehumanize one another.

We categorize and stereotype.

They become criminals and thugs.

They become abuser and oppressors.

They stop being people. They stop being human beings with a heart and a soul and a mind.

They become that which we fear. That which we hate.

They become the reason for our problems, instead of the reason for solving them.

They stop being children of God in our eyes. And we cannot see, that just as Christ suffered and died for us, so too did Christ suffer and die for them. Just as Jesus calls us to live in his risen life, so to does he call them. Just as Jesus calls us to abide in his love, so too does he call them to abide.

God calls us as Christians, to love our enemy as ourselves. To abide in his love. To grow and be nourished from his vine.

Is this easy? No, no it is not.

It takes courage.

It takes strength.

It takes faith.

But we have to be willing to put aside our fears. To put aside out hate. To put aside out dehumanizing ways that separate us, and divide us.

It is clear, it is so painfully clear, that we do not yet fully abide in the love of Jesus Christ. It is clear, so painfully clear, that the kingdom of God which we are called to build, still has much work to be done.

Too many from our flock have been snatched away. We have been scattered and flung so far apart. Too many branches have been cut from the vine. We are slowly drying up and being consumed by flames of our own making.

We will continue to face this problem until people on both sides are able to see, that its not just fellow Americans standing across from them, not just fellow human beings standing across from them, but fellow Children of God standing across from them.

We must abide in the love of Jesus Christ. For without it we are nothing.

May 02, 2015

I've been haunted –fascinated – by screens: movie screens, television screens, computer screens. For a long time, as the following example suggests.

"Long ago, rain fell on mud and became rock … half a billion years ago … but even before that … beneath the rocks … are the words of God. Listen."

Those who have seen the beautiful 1992 film directed by Robert Redford, A River Runs Through It, based on Norman Maclean's book, may remember this opening scene where Maclean's father, a Presbyterian minister and seasoned fly fisherman, bends down to the height of his two young sons with a river stone between his fingers.

In the closing scene, a narrator speaks over striking images of nature: "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs."

Then the last line, one I've used in a sermon on baptism: "I am haunted by waters."

The first time I saw A River Runs Through It, it seemed to me to be the creative “screening” of the beginning of the Gospel according to John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… All things came into being through him… life… light that shines in the darkness, without being overcome … And the word became flesh, and lived among us.”

Another line from the film “screens” all those scriptures that suggest on the one hand that we cannot earn or merit salvation (God’s love), that it is free – that’s why we call it grace – but, on the other hand, not easy. It’s Norman Maclean's reflection on his father's love of fly fishing, and the expertise he had gained.

"My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things – trout as well as eternal salvation – come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy."

I am haunted by screens.

The incredible thing about screens is they can take us to emotional heights and depths we never imagined. Their power, for example, is that any one of us might walk into a darkened theater and move out into the light a different person. In a way, good movies have that power in common with a moving liturgy.

During the Civil War, Walt Whitman often visited the sick and wounded as a volunteer nurse. He would read passages from the scriptures to dying soldiers, one of whom inquired whether he was a religious man. He replied: "Probably not, my dear, in the way you mean." Then he kissed the dying man.

Similarly, the best religious films, TV shows and novels I've seen and read are not religious in the way that phrase is commonly understood.

Have you ever identified a spiritually astute scene you came across in a movie or TV show … or a novel? One that invited reflection both from those of us who may think of ourselves as religious or spiritual, and those of us who may not. I suspect it was probably not from a film with a specifically religious theme, one that would not appeal to mass audiences because it seemed like an illustrated sermon, or, in the case of a book, simply a lengthy sermon.

If you have one in mind, I'd appreciate a note about it. Send an email note to blewellis@me.com. You may find it in a future column.I am haunted by screens.

[Canon Bill Lewellis, blewellis@me.com, an Episcopal priest, retired since 2010, served on the bishop’s staff of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem for 24 years and on the bishop’s staff of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Allentown for 13 years before that.]

April 30, 2015

TopSpin• The massive earthquake in Nepal … As I type, more than 5,000 people have died in a massive earthquake which hit Nepal on Saturday (April 25) and more than 8,000 have been injured. By the time you read this, that number of those dead and injured may have increased by thousands. Vast tent cities have sprung up in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, for those displaced or afraid to return to their homes because Nepal and surrounding aras have continued to experience aftershocks.. International aid is arriving where some 1.4 million are short of food. Such measures will likely be insufficient to battle their water, food and electricity needs, or stem any disease outbreaks that may result from current living conditions, which have seen thousands digging through rubble by day, and sleeping outdoors by night. Episcopal Relief & Development is working with the ecumenical ACT Alliance in Nepal and local partners in northern India and southwest China regarding urgent needs and assessment efforts. Read on.

• When Baltimore burned … [Nicholas Kristof, NYTimes] Conservatives have sometimes been too quick to excuse police violence. And liberals have sometimes been too quick to excuse rioter violence. It’s outrageous when officers use excessive force against young, unarmed African-American men, who are 21 times as likely to be shot dead by the police as young white men. It’s also outrageous when rioters loot shops or attack officers. So bravo to Toya Graham, the Baltimore mom captured on video grabbing her teenage son from the streets and frog-marching him home. The boy wilted: It must be humiliating to be a “badass” rioter one moment and then to be savagely scolded in front of your peers and sent to your room. “That’s my only son, and at the end of the day I don’t want him to be a Freddie Gray,” Graham later told CBS News. It was of course Gray’s death, after an injury at the hands of the police, that set off the rioting. On social media, there were plenty of people making excuses for rioters — a common refrain was “nothing else works to get attention.” But to their great credit, African-American leaders provided firm moral guidance and emphasized that street violence was unconscionable. President Obama set just the right tone. “When individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot, they’re not protesting. They’re not making a statement. They’re stealing,” Obama said. “When they burn down a building, they’re committing arson. And they’re destroying and undermining businesses and opportunities in their own communities.” Read on.

• Supreme Court hears arguments in historic gay-marriage case … [WaPo] The Supreme Court’s historic consideration Tuesday (April 28) of whether the Constitution protects the right of same-sex couples nationwide to marry seemed to come down to a familiar arbiter: Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. That’s normally a safe haven for gay rights activists — Kennedy has written each of the court’s major victories advancing their movement. But the question after the hearing seemed to be whether forcing reluctant states to allow same-sex unions was a logical extension of the court’s rulings or too much, too fast.Kennedy seemed to be working it out. Read on.

• The new form of racism … [Alan Jennings, The Morning Call, Your View, April 29] Watching cops shoot black men running for their lives, then allegedly dropping a Taser at the feet of the dead body — it seems like a modern-day lynching. We've gotten better at screwing people of color out of the liberty and justice for all that we fool ourselves believing we really care about. We know all the tricks: We use zoning rules to require minimum lot sizes, the only real purpose of which is to exclude; we pay for and govern our so-called public schools in ways that can only be characterized as educational apartheid; we cut funding year after year for programs that can make a difference and then say, "See? Government doesn't work." And we deny we are racist. We get indignant when people of color point out, over and over, the many ways we clearly are. Imagine: You get mistreated, left out, shot in the back and you're not allowed to point out that you're being mistreated, left out, shot in the back … They know enough to know it is a bad thing to be racist. But they don't know enough to realize how racist they are. In fact, my friend, Ed DeGrace, says denying there is racism is the new form of racism. Read on.

• The underground inferno that created a ghost town … [Narrative.ly, Anthony Taille and Dan Buczynski] Fifty years ago, this prosperous Pennsylvania coal town was ripped apart by a devastating subterranean mine fire. Today, the flames still burn in Centralia, the ghost of a ghost town. In Columbia County, Centralia is less than two miles north of Ashland in Schuylkill County. Almost nothing is left of this former community of 1,400. A few buildings remain, most of them old row houses deprived of their neighbors, needing brick retainers to help them stand up without adjoining structures. The total population here was six people in 2014. Everyone else left after a long-lasting mine fire rendered the place uninhabitable, resulting in a government-mandated evacuation. Read on.

• 25 years of the Hubble telescope in 25 stunning photos… [PBS] Hubble’s contributions to space exploration are countless. Its images, explains Hubble Space Telescope Senior Project Scientist Jennifer Wiseman, have shown the first definitive detection of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. They also have provided measurement of the expansion rate of the universe, and detection (along with ground-based telescopes) of acceleration in that expansion, caused by mysterious “dark energy” that appears to be pushing the universe apart. “Hubble will go down in history as having changed the textbooks by totally revolutionizing humanity’s view of the universe, and our place in it,” Wiseman says. “It has also shown us exquisite beauty in the universe, in everything from galaxies to glowing nebulae to planetary atmospheres in our own solar system.” Read on.

• Stories, Myths, and Values … is a new blog by Trinity Bethlehem parishioner Bruce Marold to discuss the intersection of theology and stories. Bruce says values are, were, and forever will be more powerful than facts. He invites visitors. By the end of May, he hopes to have it more comfortably furnished. Here.

• World Bank launches interfaith push to eliminate extreme poverty …[RNS] Observers say it’s the first time the World Bank has tapped the reach and resources of religious groups in combating extreme poverty — partly out of a realization that the work is too big for any one institution, and in hopes of limiting unnecessary duplication between the World Bank’s ideas and those of various religious groups. Read on.

• Have you been receiving four newsletters monthly? (1) The newSpin newsletter is published by Bill Lewellis on or near the first and third Thursdays. To receive it by email, please email Jo Trepagnier. Otherwise, find the newSpin newsletter at the newSpin blog. (2) The Leadership News is published on or near the second Thursday of each month, and consists primarily of information that clergy, lay leaders and church staff need to do their work. This isn't to say that all are not invited to sign up for it. Find the April issue here and the March issue here. To receive it monthly by email, sign up at the bottom of Leadership News, at "Join our Mailing List." (3) The newSpin newsletter is published by Bill Lewellis on or near the first and third Thursdays. To receive it by email, please email Jo Trepagnier. Otherwise, find the newSpin newsletter at the newSpin blog. (4) The Diocesan e-Newsletter is published on or near the fourth Thursday. Find the February, March and April issues, and sign up here to receive future issues by email as soon as they are published. Actually, you may sign up also at the bottom of the newsletter itself. The content of the monthly newsletter will be posted also on the DioBeth website and linked to on Facebook and in our Twitter stream.

Episcopal/Anglican• Supreme Court cases prelude to marriage debates at General Convention ... [ENS] Episcopalians who followed the April 28 U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments on whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to be married were no doubt looking ahead to the implications of the court’s eventual ruling for this summer’s General Convention. The Episcopal Church officially has advocated for equal treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in both the civil and ecclesial arenas for years. However, it was not until 2012 that the General Convention voted to consider anew the church’s theology of marriage, and LGBT Episcopalians’ access to the sacramental rite. Thus, while the court’s ruling, expected to come before the current terms ends in late June or early July, may settle the issue of access to civil marriage and fulfill one of The Episcopal Church’s long-held public-policy stances, its decision could come as the convention is debating the church’s understanding of sacramental marriage and the accompanying canonical definition of marriage. The 78th meeting of the General Convention takes place June 25-July 3 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Read on.

SpiritSpin• The Rev. Han van den Blink, Ph.D. … is priest-in-charge at St. Paul's Troy. More than 30 years after he was ordained in the Presbyterian Church, he was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1994 at the age of 59 and joined the Bexley Hall Episcopal Seminary faculty where he taught ascetical and pastoral theology until he retired in 2006. He spent most of his professional life as a pastoral counselor and psychologist. He lives in Elmira, NY. He was invited to give the following address in 2003 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of Bovendonk, a Roman Catholic Seminary for late vocations in the Bisdom of Breda, the Netherlands. Much more than an essay on late vocations Han's address serves as a helpful meditation on the spiritual life. Read on.

•• Centering Prayer … [Contemplative Outreach] is a receptive method of silent prayer that prepares us to receive the gift of contemplative prayer, prayer in which we experience God's presence within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than consciousness itself. This method of prayer is both a relationship with God and a discipline to foster that relationship. Read on.

• The Exercises are ending, and panic has ensued … [Crux] As her Ignatian spirituality group comes to an end, Margery Egan wonders, where will we go now to talk about Jesus walking on water without people looking at us like we're deluded and deranged? Read on.

• Incapable of complexity? … [Faith vs. Facts, T.M. Luhrmann, NYTimes Op-Ed, April 18] The following anecdote is included in Tracy Kidder’s book on the anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer. A woman who had taken her tuberculosis medication and been cured then told Dr. Farmer that she was going to get back at the person who had used sorcery to make her ill. “But if you believe that,” he cried, “why did you take your medicines?” In response to the great doctor she replied, in essence, “Honey, are you incapable of complexity?” Read on.

• Education for Ministry … [Cathy Bailey] Every baptized person is called to ministry. The Education for Ministry (EfM) program, offered as an education at-a-distance course by the School of Theology of the University of the South at Sewanee, provides Episcopalians and others with the education to carry out that ministry. Lay persons face the difficult and often subtle task of interpreting the richness of the church's faith in a complex and confusing world. As the Church continues to emphasize the importance of lay ministry, many laypersons have come to feel that they need a theological education that supports their faith and also teaches them to express that faith in day-to-day events. EfM is one way for them to gain that knowledge. EfM offers a four-year course, covering the basic subjects of a theological education: Old Testament, New Testament, Church History, and Theological Choices (a study of theological trends and movements in the Church). Participants register for one year at a time. Students meet locally in seminar groups of six to twelve participants and a trained mentor, who meet weekly for two to three hours during a nine-month academic year. Participants are given weekly assignments to study with the help of resource guides. In the seminars, members have an opportunity to share their insights and discoveries as well as to discuss questions which the study materials raise for them through discussion and guided reflection. By examining their own beliefs and their relationship to our culture and the tradition of our Christian faith, participants can learn what it means to be effective ministers in the world. The seminar is supported by a life of prayer and regular worship. EfM groups are encouraged to develop a pattern of worship appropriate to their situations. Liturgical materials are furnished with the course materials. The current one-year fee per student is $350, which pays for EfM materials and an honorarium for the mentor. EfM grants 18 Continuing Education Units (CEU) for each year of study. There are no examinations or papers. EfM does not grant college credits. For more about EfM visit its website at efm.sewanee.edu. Contact Cathy Bailey, Diocesan EfM Coordinator at cbnnp@rcn.com for more information.

• Spirit Resources ... way below.

Columns, Sermons, Reflections and other Spin

•• Your sermon? … If you have a sermon you might like uploaded to the newSpin blog and linked to from the newSpin newsletter, point bill.lewellis@gmail.com to it online.

• Starving for wisdom … [NYTimes, Nicholas Kristof] “We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.” That epigram from E.O. Wilson captures the dilemma of our era. Yet the solution of some folks is to disdain wisdom. Read on.

Where Religion, Culture and Politics Might Intersect• Pope Francis calls for equal pay for women … [HuffPost] The wide gulf between wages for men and women is "pure scandal," Pope Francis said on Wednesday. "As Christians, we must become more demanding...[by] supporting with decision the right to equal retribution for equal work; disparity is a pure scandal," he said. Read on.

•• Will the popularity of Pope Francis affect the 2016 election? … [Crux] Some think the pope’s September address to Congress and the United Nations could set the stage for the real test of his impact in American culture: the 2016 presidential election. Miguel Diaz, a former ambassador to the Holy See and now a theology professor at Chicago’s Loyola University, said the pope’s emphasis on “servant leadership and the pedagogy of mercy” could convince Catholic bishops and politicians here to reassess their own approach to public life. “This understanding of leadership provides an invitation to our own local and national leaders to continue to build one nation out of a diversity of peoples,” he told Crux, “and to follow Pope Francis’ example of leading by protecting and defending the dignity and rights of the most vulnerable persons within our country.” Will bishops focus primarily on life and marriage issues as in elections past, or will they take a cue from Francis and spend more energy on other issues that also are part of their agenda, such as poverty, immigration, and international religious liberty? “The full impact of Francis’s influence will have to await 2016, since it is usually during presidential cycles that issues dear to Catholic bishops’ hearts, like contraception and abortion, get a national airing,” Tom Kington wrote at Politico last November. Read on.

• Pope Francis Steps Up Campaign on Climate Change, to Conservatives’ Alarm … [NYTimes,Coral Davenport and Laurie Goostein, April 27]Since his first homily in 2013, Pope Francis has preached about the need to protect the earth and all of creation as part of a broad message on the environment. It has caused little controversy so far. But now, as Francis prepares to deliver what is likely to be a highly influential encyclical this summer on environmental degradation and the effects of human-caused climate change on the poor, he is alarming some conservatives in the United States who are loath to see the Catholic Church reposition itself as a mighty voice in a cause they do not believe in. Read on.

• The Pope joins the climate wars … [NYTimes Editorial Board] Since his papacy began in March 2013, Pope Francis has amply demonstrated his readiness to take on tough social and political causes. Now, much to the dismay of some conservatives, he is confronting human-caused global warming. A high-level workshop in the Vatican this week on the moral dimensions of climate change is one of several major events planned by the Roman Catholic Church in anticipation of an encyclical on the environment the pope plans to issue this summer. Though only the broad outlines are known, the encyclical is already raising hopes among environmentalists and deep alarm among climate-skeptics. Read on.

•• The terminally ill's right to die: a debate … [NCR, Maureen Fiedler] Catholic Fr. Thomas Petri, an instructor in moral theology and academic dean of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., and Episcopal Bishop Eugene Robinson, retired bishop of the episcopal diocese of New Hampshire and now at the Center for American Progress, debated the issue. They left no stone unturned in their pointed but civilized exchange. Read on to where you can listen.

Evangelism/Stewardship/Worship/Church Growth•• Peter Singer on the ethics of philanthropy: his latest goal is to get people to give away one-third of their income … [WSJournal, Alexandra Wolfe] Peter Singer would sooner donate a kidney than sponsor a concert hall. So when entertainment mogul David Geffen gave $100 million in early March for the renovation of Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York—it will soon be renamed David Geffen Hall—Mr. Singer questioned why people thought he was doing so much good. Over Skype from his home in Melbourne, Australia, Mr. Singer says that he doesn’t understand “how anyone could think that giving to the renovation of a concert hall that could impact the lives of generally well-off people living in Manhattan and well-off tourists that come to New York could be the best thing that you could do with $100 million.” He notes, for example, that a donation of less than $100 could restore sight to someone who is blind. Mr. Geffen declined to comment. In his new book, The Most Good You Can Do, Mr. Singer argues that people should give a substantial percentage—ideally a third—of their income to charities. Mr. Singer himself has given away at least 10% of his income for 40 years; that number has gradually risen to between a quarter and a third of his income. He advocates focusing donations on the developing world. Once the world’s more basic needs have been met, he says, “then help people listen to concerts in beautiful concert halls.” It’s a controversial way to encourage philanthropy. Some critics find it uncharitable—and counterproductive—to wag a disapproving finger at any sort of charitable giving, or to rank one type above another. Supporting cultural institutions through private donations, they argue, improves the quality of life for an entire society. Read on

• The Exercises are ending, and panic has ensued … [Crux] As her Ignatian spirituality group comes to an end, Margery Egan wonders, where will we go now to talk about Jesus walking on water without people looking at us like we're deluded and deranged? See above, under SpiritSpin.

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In the Media

Rest in Peace• Memorial Service for Dolores Caskey … [Laura Howell]will be held on Saturday, May 23 at 2:00 p.m. in Trinity Church, Bethlehem. Calling hour at 1:00.

• Mary Valenti … Rita Piovane's mother died on April 20. Her death was an answer to Mary’s prayer, an end to her suffering, and her entrance into God’s loving arms and eternal home, according to her son-in-law, Michael. The Mass of Christian Burial was held at her parish, St. Joseph the Worker in Orefield on Tuesday, April 28. May her soul, and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Obituary here.

• Cardinal Francis George, 78 …[RNS] was the intellectual lodestar for conservative U.S. Catholics, an icon of a conservatism suddenly out of favor. Read on. Also, below under TaleSpin, "The Man in the Red Dress," by Cathleen Falsani. And in Crux, by John Allen … During an era under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, when Catholicism was trying to swim against an increasingly secular tide in the Western world, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago was the American prelate trusted by those two popes, almost above all others, to spearhead that project in the United States. He was known by some as "The American Ratzinger." Read on.

• Jayne Meadows, 95 … [NYTimes] a glamorous redheaded actress who starred on Broadway, in the movies and on television, but who was probably best known for her 46-year role as Steve Allen’s wife, business partner and frequent co-star, died on Sunday at her home in Encino, Calif. She was born Jayne Meadows Cotter on Sept. 27, 1919, in Wuchang, China, where her father, Francis James Meadows Cotter, and her mother, the former Ida Miller Taylor, were Episcopal missionaries. The family moved back to the United States in 1927, and her father eventually became rector of Christ Church in Sharon, Conn.Read on. Obituary here.Also, Episcopal Café.

TaleSpin

• The surprisingly simple way Utah solved chronic homelessness and saved millions… [WaPo, Terrence McCoy, April 17]The story of how Utah solved chronic homelessness begins in 2003, inside a cavernous Las Vegas banquet hall populated by droves of suits … Give homes to the homeless … This has been perhaps the nation’s most successful — and radical — program to end chronic homelessness. Now, more than a decade later, chronic homelessness in one of the nation’s most conservative states may soon end. And all of it is thanks to a program that at first seems stripped from the bleeding-heart manual. In 2005, Utah had nearly 1,932 chronically homeless. By 2014, that number had dropped 72 percent to 539. Today, explained Gordon Walker, the director of the state Housing and Community Development Division, the state is “approaching a functional zero.” Read on.

• 'What a horrible mother:' How a call from a 'good samaritan' derailed these mothers’ lives … [Salon, Kim Brooks] These moms left their kids for a few minutes and got arrested. A scary look at our new moral vigilantism. Read on.

• The state of storytelling in the internet age … [ReadThisThing] Great stories are reaching more people than ever, and the web is giving the world a better platform to tell stories than ever. But news divisions are still shrinking, great publications are still failing, and journalists are telling our youth to avoid the profession. Read on.

• Pulitzer winners tie domestic abuse to Christianity … [Baptist Press] The South Carolina newspaper that won this year's Pulitzer Prize for public service journalism has drawn criticism for linking the state's domestic violence problems with its residents' belief in the Bible's teaching about gender. Read on.

• The man in the red dress: my unlikely friendship with Cardinal Francis George … [Religion Dispatches, Cathleen Falsani] Cardinal George was more than the caricature of a curmudgeonly, conservative Catholic prelate, or an out-of-touch shepherd confounded by contemporary culture and the actual lives of his flock. Read on.

• My son died in my arms from a heroin overdose. Here’s what the War on Drugs missed … [WaPo, Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good] Heroin use and overdoses are skyrocketing. Deaths have tripled since 2010, a fact that can often be dismissed until there’s a face to this reality. Read on.

BackSpin – Do you remember?• Bishop Walton Empey[Diocesan Life, December 1994] will be with us for three months in early 1995 while Bishop Mark teaches at General Theological Seminary.

• Bishop Mark Dyer[Diocesan Life, January 1995] stunned delegates at Diocesan Convention, December 1994, when he read a letter indicating he would submit his resignation as bishop of Bethlehem with the intention of accepting a call from Virginia Theological Seminary to become professor of theology and director of spiritual formation, effective January 1996.

• Jubilee Diocese[Diocesan Life, January 1995] The National Jubilee Committee awarded the Diocese of Bethlehem the unique designation of "Jubilee Diocese." Bethlehem became the first diocese to receive this unique designation to recognize efforts on the part of the diocesan community to encourage and support local congregations in their ministry to serve poor and marginalized people. A grant of $25,000 accompanied the designation. "We are forming a partnership with this diocese," said Ntsiki Kabane-Langford, Jubilee Officer of the Episcopal Church. "We are hopeful that this partnership will provide a dynamic model for the whole church."

"So many people[Diocesan Life, January 1995] want to wrap everything up before they die," wrote Marius Bressoud in the first of five monthly columns on Spirituality and Aging. "It seems to me that a more desirable objective is to be always in the midst of a project, one that keeps me awake in the middle of the night to ponder how I might say something more accurately, render a painting more effectively, manage a personal relationship more sensitively."

Ecumenism, Interfaith, Pluralism – or Not• Three important church trends in the next ten years … [Christianity Today] (1)The Hemorrhaging of Mainline Protestantism. (2)Continued Growth of Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Movement. (3)Networks will Explode in Number and Influence. Read on.

• On Ascension Thursday, May 14 … [Maria Tjeltveit] the Christian Communities Gathering of Northeastern PA will gather for a service of Prayer for Christian Unity at the First Presbyterian Church at 97 S Franklin St, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701. The prayer service will be at 12 noon. Bishop Joseph Bambera of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton will be the homilist. We hope that you will be able to join us for our first Ascension Day (according to the Gregorian or Western Calendar) gathering to pray for Christian unity. Our organization was organized in 1999. Current representatives are from various Church traditions: Assembly of God, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian, Presbyterian, Salvation Army, Orthodox, Byzantine and Ukrainian Greek Catholic, Polish National Catholic and Roman Catholic. We welcome new members as official or unofficial representatives from the different Churches. Please feel free to contact mtjeltveit@episcopalmediator.org for further information

• Inside the world's largest free kitchen … [Vice.com] A young man in a hot-pink turban raises his hands humbly as he sits crossed-legged on the floor. Into his raised hands falls a hot roti that he plops into the metallic tray in front of him. Next to him is an elderly woman wearing a saffron sari. She raises her hands next and is offered the same. On either side of them are hundreds of others, all seated cross-legged, and all with the same metallic tray.Everyone eats the same food being dished out by the volunteers: dal, vegetables, and a thick South Asian rice pudding called kheer. It is lunchtime at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, and of the nearly 100,000 people who eat here on an average day, not a single one of them will pay for the food they consume … Nearly 500 years ago, a Sikh guru living in the Indian subcontinent introduced a revolutionary idea when it comes to the consumption of food. The idea was simple enough: a place should exist where everyone, regardless of religion or social status, could sit on the ground together as equals and eat the same food. The philosophy behind this free meal was a radical departure from the prevailing norms, where caste hierarchies decided what you ate and with whom you ate it. Read on..• Resources … way below.

Evangelical Lutheran Church NEPA Synod website ... Here. ELCA website ... Here. ELCA News Service ... Here. ELCA's blogs may be found here. See especially "Web and Multimedia Development."Spirit Spinning ... for those who hunger and thirst for a deeper connection with God ... Here.

Moravian ChurchMoravian Church in North Americawebsite. Moravian Church Northern Provincewebsite. Moravian Theological Seminarywebsite.

United Methodist Church• United Methodist Church raises millions in small donations to fight malaria … [HuffPost]The United Methodist Church gave $9.6 million on Wednesday to the Global Fund, a health-focused nonprofit based in Geneva, to help the group fight malaria. It was the single largest contribution to the fund by a faith organization, and was made possible largely through grassroots efforts by congregants.Local fundraising efforts, ranging from lemonade stands to car washes to 5K runs, provided the bulk of the sum, Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton told The Huffington Post, with the average contribution amounting to just $ 87.31. Read on.

Roman Catholic• Catholics around the world can't afford 'luxury issues' … [Crux, John Allen] — Luxury issues are the argumentsthat only affluent cultures and churches can afford to have. Read on.

Diocese of Allentown ... Here.• Largest class of permanent deacons … [Morning Call, Dan Sheehan, April 21] This year's class of permanent deacons, 47 men, is the largest of any RC diocese in the U.S. Read on. [Bill] In the Episcopal Church, they are called vocational deacons, or simply deacons. The Roman Catholic Church calls them permanent deacons, as opposed to transitional deacons, i.e., those who are ordained deacons on their way to ordination as priests.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ... Here. Catholic News Service ... Here.

The Vatican• Pope Francis removes Bishop Finn … [Commonweal, Grant Gallicho, April 21] In a one-sentence bulletin, the Vatican announced that Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, who was convicted of failing to report child abuse in 2012, has resigned. Pope Francis accepted Finn's resignation "in conformity with canon 401, paragraph 2"--the statute that covers bishops who cannot fulfill their duties because of poor health or "other grave reasons." News of the resignation follows months of speculation, which had intensified over the past week, that Pope Francis was poised to remove Finn. In September 2014, the National Catholic Reporterrevealed that a Canadian bishop had been sent by the Holy See to Kansas City to investigate Finn. Just last November, Cardinal Seán O'Malley of Boston, president of the pope's new commission on child protection, told 60 Minutes that the Holy See had to "address urgently" the case of Robert Finn. Less than six months later, Pope Francis has done just that. What might it mean. Read on. Also in Crux, by John Allen … In what is likely to be hailed as major step toward accountability for Catholic bishops who mishandle sexual abuse allegations, the Vatican has announced the resignation of Bishop Robert Finn. Read on. And, from RNS … Five lessons from the resignation of Bishop Robert Finn. Pope Francis send a powerful message to the Catholic Church. Read on.

Francis: Priests should never refuse baptism to one who asks … [NCR] In words that may be interpreted to rebut Catholic priests who refuse to baptize children of same-sex couples, Pope Francis has said that priests should not refuse baptism to anyone who asks for the sacrament. Speaking in a homily Sunday (April 26) for the ordination of 19 new priests for the diocese of Rome, Francis told the new ministers: "With baptism, you unite the new faithful to the People of God. It is never necessary to refuse baptism to someone who asks for it!" The pontiff also in the homily personally pleaded that all priests be merciful when hearing confessions."In the confessional, you will be there to forgive, not to condemn!" Read on.

Health and Wellness• The making of Dr. Oz: How an award-winning doctor turned away from science and embraced fame … [Vox, Julia Belluz. April 16] Parts of Dr. Oz's message have come under fire recently from the federal government and the scientific community for deviating too far from established medical fact. This scrutiny, however, hasn't cooled the ardor of fans. … After covering Oz for several years, I'm fascinated by him. How did a gifted, award-winning cardiothoracic surgeon with credentials from three Ivy League schools become a TV star who promotes belly-fat busters and anti-aging tricks? I'm also intrigued by the hold he has on his fans. Why do so many people place their trust — and their health — in the hands of a TV personality? What does his popularity say about Americans' attitudes toward science? …A group of professors, scientists and doctors, led by Stanford University's Henry Miller, is asking Columbia to reconsider Oz's faculty appointment. "Dr. Oz is guilty of either outrageous conflicts of interest or flawed judgments about what constitutes appropriate medical treatments, or both," they wrote in a recent letter to Lee Goldman, Columbia's dean of the faculties of health sciences and medicine. "Members of the public are being misled and endangered, which makes Dr. Oz's presence on the faculty of a prestigious medical institution unacceptable."The medical community's reluctance to hold Oz accountable is part of a problem that's bigger than the man himself. Read on.

• The real reason hackers want your medical records … [Kernel] “You may be personally offended that someone would know that much about your health history, the conversations you’ve had with your physician about your sex life, or that you can’t sleep at night,” Velasquez said. “But thieves can’t really monetize that unless you’re a very attractive target and there’s something they could blackmail. The data that’s valuable to them are the personal identifiers” – names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and insurance information. That info can be used to obtain credit cards or loans, commit tax fraud, or send fake bills to insurance providers.Read on.

• Resources … below

BookSpin• Resources … below.

Podcasts•• If you are interested in listening to podcasts … [Bill] The following podcasts may be found with the Stitcher app. I enjoy all of them. Not in any particular order. 1. TED Radio Hour; 2. Slate's Political Gabfest; 3. The Moth Podcast; 4.This American Life; 5. Radiolab from WNYC; 6. Hourly News Summary from NPR; 7. APM: A Prairie Home Companion; 8. Fresh Air; 9. Science Friday; 10. PBS News Hour; 11. The Pulse, WHYY; 12. OnBeing with Krista Tippett; 13. 60 Minutes, CBS; 14. The Ethicists; 15. Popping Collars. More to come. If you have a favorite podcast, please tell Bill, who will tell the world.

Media/Films/TV/Music/Tech• 60 Minutes airs disturbing footage… [Poynter] On Sunday, April 19, the storied newsmagazine decided to broadcast graphic footage for "A Crime Against Humanity," its report on the 2013 sarin gas attack in Syria. The video showed "more than three minutes of video captured by cell phones of adults and children suffering seizures, vomiting and gasping for air," Poynter's Al Tompkins writes. (Poynter) | "As it aired, viewers by and large agreed that it was disturbing, but also necessary." (CNN) | Here's the report. (CBS News)

VariaSpin• Trapped Into Selling Magazines Door-to-Door … [The Atlantic, Darlena Cunha, April 20] Traveling crews have been exploiting young workers and scamming customers for decades—and neither law enforcement nor Congress has been able to do anything about it. Read on.

SpiritSpin• The Book of Common Prayer ... every edition from 1549 to 1979. Here.• Prayers and Thanksgivings from the BCP ... Here.• The (Online) Book of Common Prayer ... Here.• The Daily Office ... can be read online in Rite I, Rite II or the New Zealand Prayer Book versions. At Mission St. Clare.• The Daily Office ... from the Diocese of Indianapolis. Here.• Daily Prayer ... a resource of Forward Movement. Here.• Holy Women, Holy Men ... Download Holy Women, Holy Men as a .pdf file.• Speaking to the Soul ... An Episcopal Café blog. Sermons, reflections, multimedia meditations and excerpts from books on spirituality. Here.• The Imitation of Christ ... Available free online.

Evangelism/Stewardship/Church Growth• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.

Media/Film/TV/Books/Podcasts/Music/Tech• Spirituality & Film ... Here.• Spirituality on DVD ... Here.• Books for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Audios for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Free eBooks by Project Gutenberg ... Here.• Free Audiobooks from LibriVox ... Here.• Free Audiobooks and eBooks ... Here and Here.• Google Books ... Millions of books you can preview or read free. Here.• The Online Books Page ... from UPenn. Here.• More free eBooks and Audiobooks ... [Techlicious] Here.• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told about your congregation, it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.• Communicate … Your Ministry, including Bill's Communication Biases and Communication-Evangelism. Here.

Religious Freedom Recap, our weekly look back at the top stories and developments on religious liberty around the world. - See more at: http://brianpellot.religionnews.com/2013/09/16/burkini-compromise-pope-hearts-atheists-dozen-muslim-march-religious-freedom-recap-sept-9-sept-16/#sthash.nA6J6Y1Y.dpuf

******************The newSpin newsletter is uploaded to the newSpin blog and posted on Bakery and on other diocesan lists of some 2,000 addresses. Many recipients forward it to others. It comes, of course, with some spin from the editor. The views expressed, implied or inferred in items or links contained in the newsletter or the blog do not represent the official view of the Diocese of Bethlehem unless expressed by or forwarded from the Bishop, the Standing Committee or the Archdeacon as an official communication. Comments are welcome on Bakery (if you are subscribed to that interactive list) and at the newSpin blog. At the newSpin blog, click in the right hand column on the title of the current newsletter. Then, make your comment below.

April 27, 2015

[The Rev. Han van den Blink, Ph.D., is priest-in-charge at St. Paul's Troy. More than 30 years after he was ordained in the Presbyterian Church, he was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1994 at the age of 59 and joined the Bexley Hall Episcopal Seminary faculty where he taught ascetical and pastoral theology until he retired in 2006. He spent most of his professional life as a pastoral counselor and psychologist. He lives in Elmira, NY. He was invited to give the following address in 2003 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of Bovendonk, a Roman Catholic Seminary for late vocations in the Bisdom of Breda, the Netherlands.]

Introduction I have called this lecture Late Vocation: A Personal Reflection. Mine is a late priestly vocation. I was 59 years old when I was ordained to the Anglican priesthood, more than thirty years after I was ordained in the Presbyterian Church. Before being priested, I spent most of my professional life as a pastoral counselor and psychologist. In retrospect, I can see that what led to my feeling called to the priesthood had been going on long before I became fully aware of it. I know that this is the experience of many. It was as if, after a number of years, several underground streams merged together and burst to the surface of my awareness.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined myself as a priest and never would I have been able to predict that I would spend the remaining years of my career teaching ascetical and pastoral theology in a seminary. Neither would I have ever been able to anticipate how profoundly right it would feel to be a priest and to know in my heart that this is what I am called to be. When your Dean, Matt Ham, asked me to share with you on this festive day a personal reflection on my experience of becoming a priest later in life, I was both greatly honored by his invitation and sufficiently intrigued to accept. I have taken seriously, as you will discover, Matt‘s request to make this a personal reflection.

When I thought of how to structure this lecture, I recalled the two aspects of my experience, both in the process of seeking ordination and afterwards, that were most critical in pulling the varied pieces of my life together and contributing decisively to my own spiritual formation. These two aspects are a renewed understanding of the traditional notion of purgation and the desire to allow this understanding to shape my behavior during difficult times, and discovering how critically important the regular cultivation of hesychia is for such a process of integration.

The Greek word hesychia, meaning silence and quietude, was much beloved by the Fathers of the early Church. I have chosen to use it because it is a word rich in meaning, describing not just absence of sound and physical stillness, but inner quietude, equanimity and tranquility and, most important of all, openness to the presence of the Holy Spirit. The hesychast tradition is an active spiritual practice which has traditionally centered on the use of the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”, as a way of being still and knowing God.

Accustomed as I was as a psychologist to think of the process of personal integration in psychological terms, it surprised me to realize that neither psychological insight nor psychotherapy but spiritual formation provided the primary means for this to happen. Although the choice of purgation and hesychia is personal, I know from my experience with deacons and priests who have trusted me with their stories that purgation and hesychia also can play an integrative role in the lives of others.

Before I proceed any further, I want those of you in this audience who are deacons or are in training for ordination to the permanent diaconate to know that everything I have to say today about priestly spiritual formation applies to you as well.

In preparing for this lecture I began by asking several Anglican and Roman Catholic priests about their thoughts on late vocations to the priesthood. I know these men well and respect their judgment. I got some interesting answers. One, a seminary Dean, told me that although he knew a few success cases, his general impression of late vocations was not particularly positive. When I asked him to explain, he said that in his experience older candidates for ordination, those in their 40's and 50's, are less malleable and open to change and, therefore, less likely to benefit from the formation process during their time in seminary.

He found that many are looking for ordination to solve personal problems or to achieve a measure of self-actualization that had escaped them elsewhere. Another drawback he mentioned was that many older candidates for ordination are imbued with a modernist or even post-modernist mindset. Such a mindset, inevitably internalized by those of us born in Western Europe and North America, is characterized by an uncritical assent to the truth of prevailing secular views about the nature of reality. This mindset, as I will explain later, can constitute a major obstacle to spiritual formation.

In answer to the same question, an older priest’s immediate response was that some of the late vocations he knew were the best and some were the worst that he had encountered. This particular priest has for a number of years occupied a position of major responsibility in the Episcopal Church, as the Anglican Church is called in the US. For this reason he has been in a position to observe the ministries of many priests. What did the worst have in common I asked? They were escaping, he answered without hesitation. In other words, they were turning to ordination in the hope of finding in the priesthood an answer to whatever was their predicament.

The Prior of a Benedictine Monastery near where I live is usually willing to consider late vocations to monastic life, some of them already ordained men themselves. He has, however, run into the same problem that the seminary Dean referred to, namely that these candidates are often more set in their ways than is desirable for monastic life and frequently have too many unresolved personal problems to make them suitable for acceptance into the novitiate. The Prior also emphasized that acculturation takes more time for those who are older. A similar view was expressed by a Roman Catholic priest who had been Director of Formation in his own congregation.

An Episcopal Bishop with long experience in Diocesan leadership had a more positive view. He told me that he is a strong supporter of late vocations, even for those in their 60s and 70s. He traced this appreciation of late vocations back to being asked at one point in his ministry to design and then run a part-time Diocesan program of academic and spiritual formation for those who were called to the priesthood later in life and who were for a variety of reasons not able to attend a regular seminary.

Rather than underperforming, as was confidently expected by many, these candidates for ordination did better in the final examination of the seven canonical areas that is required of all candidates for ordination in the Episcopal Church than those who had obtained their theological degrees in a regular seminary. He also stressed that all those who had gone through that program were highly motivated and that those who were still alive were flourishing in the priesthood.

What did these late vocations have in common I asked? The first thing the Bishop mentioned was that before being ordained, they invariably had been successful in their careers, such as running a department store, owning a bakery, working as an engineer, a social worker or an executive in a steel company.

This observation was echoed by a Roman Catholic priest who wrote that older candidates for ordination at the Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corners, Wisconsin were men who usually had successful secular careers including “doctors, lawyers, bankers, engineers, teachers, architects, accountants, employees of the FBI, military officers, commercial pilots, construction workers, carpenters, [and] farmers.” but who became “convinced that there ought to be more to life than the accumulation of wealth and the attainment of a prestigious position in society.” He also mentioned that widowed men were frequently among candidates for ordination.

Were there other factors that contributed to their being successful priests I asked the Episcopal Bishop? Yes, there were, and he mentioned four of them. First, everyone of these candidates was carefully vetted by the Commission on Ministry of the Diocese. Second, they were commonly more spiritually mature than younger candidates and had paid more attention to their spiritual development prior to being considered for ordination. Third, they generally maintained a full devotional life before entering the Diocesan program and were active in their respective parishes. And fourth, they sought to be ordained in response to a strongly felt call from God, not as another career choice but because they felt deeply that something was missing in their lives.

Adding to what the Bishop said, there is another positive side to late vocations that needs to be highlighted. A common problem among those who are ordained earlier in life is the mistaken assumption that they have achieved a level of personal and spiritual maturity that may not be based in reality. I was struck with what my colleague John Colacino said about this recently, “There is something about church culture that inhibits potential for growth in priests because they all too easily appear [to themselves and others as] finished products. Later vocations may not face this pitfall in the same way if they are developmentally on track and have dealt with some of the [challenges of life] in a more conducive milieu. If the seminary experience contributes to a deepening and refining of a maturity already there, then such priests may prove to be among the best.”

Did these successful late vocations experience any particular problems I asked the Bishop? Yes, he said that they often felt like second class citizens who were looked down on by priests who had gone the regular seminary route. Their lack of experience with a nurturing community of faith also could contribute to spiritual dryness once they were out in the field. Many of them were anxious about being able to meet the academic requirements since they had been out of school for so long. And then there was the factor of lack of support from their families. For those who were married, the call to the priesthood and the change in life style that this would require often caused major conflict with spouses who were settled in their own careers and who did not look kindly on losing their jobs, living on lowered income, or having to move elsewhere.

I was fascinated by the Bishop’s account, because it reminded me of what had impressed me during my first visit to Bovendonk. In the fall of 2000, John Kevern, the Dean of Bexley Hall Seminary, ran across Matt Ham’s article about Bovendonk in The Tablet, the International Catholic Weekly. The caption above that article read, “A new sort of seminary has proved a success in the Netherlands. Its students can train part-time for the priesthood while keeping secular jobs or living in religious communities. Its rector says the results speak for themselves.” Since John Kevern knew that I regularly visit family and friends in the Netherlands, he suggested that I might include a visit to Bovendonk on one of my next trips. As it happened, I was scheduled for a sabbatical leave the very next semester, and so I was privileged, thanks to Matt Ham’s hospitality, to spend a weekend at Bovendonk in March 2001.

I found four things here at Bovendonk particularly impressive. First, that students are carefully selected, are expected to succeed, and are given all the help needed to complete their years of study and formation successfully. This makes for a positive and supportive learning environment. Two, that they are held to a high academic standard. This includes being exposed not only to the traditional theological disciplines but also to human sciences that are particularly relevant to pastoral ministry.

Third, that they receive all the way through their six years in the program, personal mentoring, guidance, and supervision of their pastoral work from experienced men and women. The very length of the Bovendonk program struck me as an advantage. Formation takes time and the three years of full time course work that are required in residential seminaries to complete a Master of Divinity in the US and Canada are hardly sufficient to accomplish adequate formation. And last but not least, it impressed me that regular participation in a Eucharistic community of prayer and worship is foundational to the Bovendonk experience. Bovendonk provides a model for dealing with late vocations in a way that addresses many of the problems that were mentioned in the conversations that I had with my priest colleagues.

It simply is not possible, it would appear, to go through the six years of study and training here without a degree of personal transformation, such as being more aware of one’s own strengths and weaknesses, gaining a deeper understanding of the complexity of human behavior, a firmer sense of one’s pastoral identity, a greater appreciation for the importance of collegiality in ministry, and most important of all, a deeper grounding in matters of the Spirit through prayer, worship, spiritual direction, and theological reflection on a regular basis in the context of a sacramental community. It is no wonder that the graduates of this program are doing so well.

Purgation and Hesychia It has been critically important in my own formation as a priest to be able to understand difficult periods in my life as times of purgation. It is all too easy to misread what is going on at such moments, especially when we believe in the cultural myth of inevitable progress or fall back on standard psychological ways of assessing our predicaments. Since avoiding hard times is not an option, it is essential to appreciate the role that purgation can play in our spiritual formation.

Purgation is one of the three phases or patterns that the Christian tradition, from as far back as the 4th century, has understood as basic to spiritual development. The other two are illumination and union . Looking at my own formation from the perspective of these three has been very helpful to me. We do not, of course, progress routinely and in a direct line from illumination to purgation to union. Indeed, these stages are not discreet, but intermingled, as I have discovered when experiencing God’s grace unexpectedly at very difficult moments in my life. They also repeat themselves throughout our life. Purgation, as I learned to my dismay, can appear all too soon on the heels of illumination.

The other important challenge to priestly formation that I want to look at briefly is the practice of hesychia. Unlike purgation, however, we can avoid cultivating hesychia, we can refrain from prayerfully practicing outer and inner quietude and openness to the Holy Spirit. As a matter of fact, anyone who has tried to cultivate hesychia knows that as soon as we set our minds on doing so, all manner of detractions immediately appear to derail our efforts. To avoid this practice, however, is to deprive priesthood of its surest foundation, the experience of God in the here and now of our lives.

First, purgation. Why is it so important to understand and respond to difficult times from the perspective of purgation? To begin with, as I have already mentioned, it is very easy to misread this phase of our spiritual journey as failure on our part or a misreading of our calling to the priesthood. Since I am one who was for a long time a firm believer in the myth of progress, seeing the juxtaposition of Jesus’ baptism and temptations in the wilderness has served as a paradigm in this regard. Following our Lord’s baptism in the Jordan, surely one of the pivotal moments of illumination in his life when the Spirit of God descended on him and he heard a voice from heaven saying,“This is my Son, the Beloved with whom I am well pleased” , we are told that he was immediately led by that same Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After the baptism in the Jordan, the desert. After illumination, purgation.

Times of purgation can last for a few hours to weeks or even longer. This can easily throw us for a loop. It is never easy to find oneself in the desert. When I think back on recent times of purgation in my life, I recall the usual moments of feeling down, empty, fatigued, conflicted, being disappointed, or worried. There were also two periods that were much more stressful. The first had to do with being accused falsely and publicly by a colleague of something I had not done. The other was set off by the attacks of September 11, 2001 that reactivated traumatic memories from the Second World War.

Theological students often go through times of purgation while in seminary. For others it happens once they are out, following ordination, in their first parishes or assignments. Major crises and traumas in one’s life can also function as times of purgation that, quite unexpectedly, can lead to becoming aware of one’s religious vocation. As a matter of fact, that was my own experience. A massive reactivation in the summer of 1988 of trauma I had experienced as a young boy in a Japanese concentration camp at the end of the Second World War set in motion an internal process that led, not many years later, to my seeking ordination. This reactivation, although painful at the time, freed me from habitual ways of remembering and perceiving. It made me aware of the presence of the Spirit during particularly difficult periods, times that I had not forgotten but was not used to looking at through the eyes of faith .

Times of purgation, then, are experiences of being in the desert, of being thrown back on oneself, of being thrown off balance, of being disoriented and losing one’s footing, of being filled with self-doubt, or of being assaulted by self-denigrating, seductive, humiliating, vengeful, sabotaging ideas and sensations, by what are known in the Eastern Church as logismoi, intrusive thoughts and feelings that assault us incessantly, that plague us like a swarm of bees.

We tend to forget that traditionally purgative experiences were understood not in the first place as divine punishment but as invitations to spiritual cleansing, to shedding, as best we can, all that keeps us from being open to the presence of the Holy Spirit, ridding ourselves of all that gets in the way of our awareness of God. Contrary to what we may have been led to believe, such obstacles are not only the obvious sins, such as lying, badmouthing, cheating, stealing, or doing physical, emotional and spiritual harm. They can be, and often are, activities and interests that we consider good. For even at our best, we are limited and fallen creatures who frequently, despite our best intentions, miss the mark.

Understanding this made me appreciate anew the literal meaning of the verb “to sin” in the New Testament, hamartano, which means “to miss the mark”. It made me see how many times I miss the mark even with the best of intentions. This exegetical clarification of hamartano became one of those “Aha!” experiences for me. For it is not only when we do bad things that we miss the mark. We miss the mark just as often when we believe that we are doing good. It is, in other words, not only bad people who are sinners but good people as well. Understanding this can save us from the pernicious moralism that is so pervasive in Christianity.

Purgation, then, not as punishment but as an invitation to metanoia (“change of mind”) that is to say to turning away from all that hinders our becoming more open to the Holy Spirit and thereby becoming the human beings we are created to be. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this ancient but to me new knowledge. Growing up I learned to understand sin as transgression, as committing acts that are bad, illegal, or immoral. This new understanding of purgation has had much to do with my willingness and ability to live into, and through, trying times differently.

The frequency of these desert experiences makes the availability of regular mentoring, spiritual direction, and trusted colleagues an absolute necessity both for seminarians and for priests. The availability of spiritual direction and regular mentoring is critical to the health of the Church’s ministry and, where I live and work, greatly needed and widely neglected. I have been enormously helped by the mentoring and spiritual direction I have received. And I have found that trusted colleagues are indispensable to ministry.

Insights from the human sciences can, of course, also be very helpful. We need to have as thorough an understanding as we can muster of the best of the human sciences so that we can use them in our ministry and for our own growth in self-awareness. I heard this same point made by Francis Cline, the Abbott of the Cistercian Monastery in Mepkin, South Carolina. He pointed out that every age makes its particular contribution to the enrichment of the Christian tradition and that a more nuanced understanding of human dynamics is the gift of our own time. One of the important things I have had to learn is to appreciate the insights of psychology, the usefulness of psychotherapy, or, for that matter, the contribution that medications can make in restoring us to a degree of balance and health, without making any of these ends into themselves.

There is another aspect about times of purgation of which that I have become aware. They invariably activate internalized cultural beliefs about the nature of reality. The two most dominant cultural beliefs that I struggle with are materialism, and by materialism I mean the philosophy and not the desire for material possessions, and with what the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has called aptly emotivism. .

Materialism is the belief that physical processes are the foundation of all of life, including consciousness and religious beliefs. What characterizes materialism most of all is its utter inability to accept the reality of the immaterial. Since matters of the spirit by definition deal with the Immaterial, religious faith is marginalized as insignificant at best or written off as superstition at worst. More people than we realize, including many in the pews and in the clergy, struggle with this issue. People of faith want to believe, but their cultural conditioning makes it often difficult for them to realize that they are looking at the Christian faith through materialist glasses. This makes them easy prey for those who are trying to deconstruct the doctrines of the Christian faith and fashion a non-theistic Christianity in its place.

The other dominant belief in our Western society is emotivism, that is to say the assumption that the subjective self is the arbiter of what is good and right and truthful. The prevailing psychological reductionism of this emotivist mindset is evident all around us in the increasing privatization of experience, the belief that the conscious, subjective self in its “thinking, observing, measuring and estimating,” and I am quoting Thomas Merton, “is absolutely primary ... [and is] the one indubitable reality [from which] all truth starts.”

I have observed this emotivist reductionism in seminary students, faculty, clergy, and more often than I would like to admit, also in myself. I happened on a classic example of this mindset one day in a seminary corridor when I walked by two students who were engaged in a theological debate. As I walked by, I heard one of them say with great conviction, “I cannot accept that, because it is not my truth.” It is the emphasis on my that betrays the emotivist mindset.

My point is that even when we disagree strongly with these dominant cultural beliefs, as I assume most of us here do, they remain powerful shapers of our behavior, as I discovered, precisely because they are internalized. It is easy to forget that our vocations always take place in a specific cultural context and that this context profoundly influences and shapes us in all that we do, including our religious vocations. Pope John Paul II made the same point when he wrote, “God always calls his priests from specific human and ecclesial contexts, which inevitably influence them.”

To the degree that we are not aware of such internalized cultural beliefs and values, their ability to influence our perceptions and shape our behavior is even greater. Like all values and beliefs we have internalized, they are triggered in times of crisis, in the same manner that our past traumas get reactivated whenever we go through any new upsetting or traumatic experience. We are like fish swimming in the waters of our culture and filtering these same waters through our gills. In other words, we are in the water, but the water is also in us.

Materialism and emotivism, once activated, manifest themselves in predictable ways. The first will immediately undermine our faith in what I have referred to as “the reality of the immaterial”. This instantly translates in a diminishing of trust in the active presence of God in our lives. For that reason we should not be surprised that even the most faithful priest or deacon can find himself, suddenly and to his own dismay, in a mood of utter agnosticism. Not knowing what causes such a rapid shift in perceptions can occasion a good deal of unnecessary suffering.

Emotivism only makes things worse by leading us to believe that the way we feel at any given moment is really what is going on. In my work as priest, seminary professor, and spiritual director I have had occasion to observe extraordinary emotivist conclusions. One that I have heard many times can be summarized as follows, “When I feel that God is close, then I know that God exists but when I do not feel God’s presence, then God does not exist”. I trust that the absurdity of this manner of thinking is obvious.

In order to avoid misunderstanding, I need to draw a distinction between different kinds of feelings. As we all know, feelings can be very helpful in telling us what is going on. Feelings can and do play a very important role in discerning the truth. If we think we are alright but our body tells us otherwise, we better pay attention. It can be dangerous to disregard pain or a sense of uneasiness. On more than one occasion my feeling that something was wrong, for instance while driving, has saved me from harm. Feeling that there is something not right about an important relationship can rescue friendships or save marriages that have gone off track. In such cases the opposite is also true, namely that denying such diagnostic feelings can doom marriages and friendships.

Feelings also play an important role in our spiritual journey. In this regard I have learned much from the 4th and 5th century Abbas and Ammas of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, many of them late vocations themselves. These desert monastics frequently addressed the spiritual importance of feelings, such as our strongly felt desire for God or our tears of penthos, that is to say tears of compunction and repentance. To them what marked the authentic saint was this gift of penthos, of sorrow over the many times that we miss the mark. “Truly you are blessed, Abba Arsenius,” Abba Poemen exclaimed, “for you wept for yourself in this world!”

Tears of penthos are tears that flow when, in the presence of God, we are able to drop our mask, when we are able to see ourselves as we really are, when the hardness and the defenses of our hearts are pierced and we glimpse the promise of forgiveness and renewal. These are the tears that signify a broken heart and a greater humility. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

These Abbas and Ammas were not discouraged by sin and failure but always saw it as an opportunity for metanoia, for conversion. Theirs was an enormous optimism about the possibility of spiritual change, of making a course correction, of turning toward God. For that reason they were not afraid of sin or of sinners for they had experienced the inexhaustible depth of God’s mercy and grace themselves.

The reason I am expanding on this at some length is to stress that I have learned to be careful in discerning what kinds of feelings I am having or dealing with, especially during desert times. Some feelings are helpful, good and even, like penthos, spiritual necessities. Others, like those activated in emotivism, can lead us astray. What marks emotivist feelings is that they are what is known as conditioned responses. A feeling of disgust, for instance, that is triggered when confronted by food that we have been taught is unfit for consumption, is a conditioned response.

Such powerful conditioned responses, needless to say, also become attached to cultural beliefs. Late vocations need to be especially aware of this phenomenon. For both materialism and emotivism can generate a strong feelings of being right, of possessing the truth. In our culture rigid materialistic views are frequently accompanied by feelings of superiority . This feeling of “being right” is, as you know, commonly paired with a negative critique of religious faith and/or a dismissal of anything that even smells like doctrine. It is not surprising that so many seekers in our time draw a sharp distinction between spirituality which is deemed good and desirable and organized religion which is considered oppressive and restricting. I hear this a lot, and I am sure that you do too.

When students wonder what the relevance of theology is to spirituality, I like to point out that one of the important functions of theology is to serve as a map to let us know when we are off course and as a lens to help us see things of which we would otherwise not be aware. Without a theological perspective, for example, it would be impossible to discern what we are going through as a time of purgation. Without a theological point of view it would not be possible to see it as a time of cleansing and testing and deepening of one’s relation to God rather than as a time of abandonment or confusion.

What I have learned and am learning from this understanding of purgation is that to the person of faith everything that has happened, everything that is now going on, and everything that is yet to come about, whether wonderful and gratifying or traumatic and difficult is an invitation to let go of the ego and become more conscious of our utter dependence on God. “Only when our limits are claimed and acknowledged”, wrote one of my students with great insight, echoing the Abbas and Ammas, ”can we begin to draw on the unlimited power of God.”

Let me repeat that we are not asked to eradicate our egos, as is often believed erroneously, but to de-center them. We need our ego as an administrator of our affairs. We do not need our ego to be the Sovereign of our life. We need our ego for planning. We do not need our ego for trying to control everything and everyone. This is the great blessing that times of purgation can convey. Purgation when responded to in this manner can increase both our self-knowledge, deepen our trust in God and our ability to see whatever transpires sub specie aeternitatis, and free us from self-pre-occupation and worry over matters that we cannot control. This was the great strength of so many early Christians and it can be ours as well.

And now to hesychia. Why is cultivating hesychia, that is to say engaging in regular contemplative prayer so important? Isn’t it enough to say one’s prayers, observe the daily office, participate faithfully in the Eucharist, and so forth? Why is it important to build into one’s schedule a regular time of contemplative prayer, of sitting silently before God, as part of one’s spiritual practice? Isn’t it, as I have heard said on more than one occasion, only for monastics or for introverts?

The answer to these questions is more complex that might be expected. I have discovered that there are at least four aspects of such a spiritual practice that need to be kept in mind: differentiation from cultural norms, seeking balance, increasing self-awareness, and practicing the presence of God. Let me briefly address each of these in turn.

First, differentiation from cultural and ecclesial norms and expectations. Ministry is extraordinarily demanding. It has rightly been called the impossible vocation. Being a priest or deacon regularly puts one in the middle of a vortex of opposing and often conflicting demands, needs, expectations, political pressures, and emotional transferences and counter-transferences, to name just a few. On any given day, we can go from the hospital to a baptism, from a funeral to a birthday party, from hearing a confession to mediating a marital conflict, from chairing a parish committee to dealing with the complaints of various parishioners, or trying to resolve a burgeoning political conflict, all the while trying to prepare ourselves to preach and teach, and keep ourselves going by getting a bite to eat on the run.

What complicates all this is a culture which, at least where I live, lives at breakneck speed, is focused on performance and results and on the bottom line, is ignorant and intolerant of the need for authentic sabbath time –for many people even vacations have become work-- and does not hold what clergy do in very high regard. Moreover, many clergy are workaholics. We preach peace and we convey the opposite. To cultivate regular times of silence, quiet, and meditation is, therefore, profoundly counter cultural. Cultivating hesychia is a challenge for everyone, regardless of age, but is of particular importance, in my experience, for those who are called to the priesthood later in life, precisely because it goes so much against our ingrained habits and cultural conditioning.

Second, seeking balance. In a recent conference on Benedictine spirituality, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, gave an address on the implications for our time of St. Benedict’s Regula. He pointed out that the holiness Benedict envisioned cannot be separated from managing the stresses and strains, the ups and down, the joys and sorrows of every day life. The Christ centered holiness that Benedict envisioned comes about, with God’s help, through ongoing conversion, through ora et labora, by participating in the daily offices, through the manner by which we accomplish even the simplest and meanest task ad majorem gloriam Dei, and especially through the way we interact with others who no matter how different, difficult, and strange they may be, are our brothers and sisters beloved by the heavenly Father.

Balance, of course, requires stability. Without stability balance becomes impossible. Stability not only of place but also of spiritual practice, of avoiding extremes, of knowing and accepting one’s own needs and limitations, of taking care of one’s physical health, in short of developing holy habits. Regular spiritual practice, including time set aside for hesychia for contemplative silence, is a critically important part of such a stability.

Third, increasing self-awareness. Intentionally entering into silence, even for a brief time, is itself an experience of being in the desert for a while. We do not literally have to go to the desert to experience the desert. When seek contemplative silence, we soon find out what the Abbas and Ammas of old discovered, namely that when we seek silence to be closer to God and get away from the pressures of our life, from what they called the shipwreck of the world, the very first thing that happens is that we run into ourselves.

I have engaged in this practice long enough to know that there is a direct connection between slacking off from such contemplative practice and feeling more scattered and overburdened. In a fascinating doctoral thesis, Marilyn Pray, a Sister of St. Joseph in Rochester, New York, investigated the relationship between spirituality and burnout among those who minister in particularly trying circumstances, like ministry to the homeless and the multiply addicted. The conclusion was absolutely clear. Only those lasted who engaged in regular spiritual practice and were active members of a community of prayer and worship.

I have discovered that the resistance many have to being silent is not only because it is associated in their minds with punishment, like solitary confinement or the age-old parental, “Go to your room!”, but also because they are afraid of their own demons, of what they may encounter about themselves. “In the desert,” the Greek Orthodox theologian Fr. John Chryssavgis writes, “you discover your true self, without any masks or myths. There [in the presence of God] you are forced to come to terms with your self. Ultimately, you are called to face up to and fight against the demons, without blaming someone else or your past.”

I have experienced more self-confrontation in practicing hesychia than in all the psychotherapy I have had. And in my training as a psychotherapist I have had quite a bit. The reason, I believe, is that with human therapists, no matter how skillful they are, it does not take long to figure out what they like to hear and to what they do not pay much attention. This makes it tempting to decide what to and what not to present. In contemplative prayer this is not possible. My experience has been that I know very well when I try to avoid the truth about myself before God. It is a humbling experience to become aware of playing games in prayer. It reveals a great deal about ourselves.

Abba Anthony the Great would approve. According to Abba Poemen he is reported to have said, ‘This is the great work of a man: always to take the blame for his own sins before God and to expect temptation to his last breath.’” It is important to remember that temptation for these Abbas and Ammas was not intrinsically negative, because it affords the opportunity for the critical spiritual practice of apatheia, of gaining control of one’s conditioned impulses and responses. So the very next saying of Abba Anthony in the The Sayings of the Desert Fathers records that “He also said, ‘Whoever has not experienced temptation cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’ He even added, ‘Without temptations no one can be saved.’” I have found this practical, humane, and hopeful approach to human infirmity of these ancient Christians enormously comforting and supportive.

Finally and most important, practicing the presence of Christ. My experience with churches and seminaries is that there is often more talk about God than reflection on experiences of God. This widespread objectification of faith that is evident in theological schools, in parishes and in dioceses is becoming increasingly problematic. As one New Testament scholar recently observed, “Learning about religion, theology, or spirituality may strengthen one’s [sense of religious vocation], but it cannot substitute for the primary knowledge gleaned from one’s own experience of the Holy’ .

In retrospect, my own education, both secular and theological, imbued me with the conviction that the only legitimate ways in which truth can be known is through the mind and through the senses, that is to say through rational thought and through scientific research. It came as a revelation to me, not too many years ago, that there is a third way in which truth can be known, particularly truth about God, and that way is through the heart. How could I have missed that? Throughout Scripture and much of the Christian tradition until the last couple of hundred years, it was taken for granted that the heart is the center of who we really are, for good or ill.

The heart not as the symbol of fuzzy, romantic love but as the mysterious and very real and alive place in and through which we can experience the Indwelling Spirit of our Lord. In a recent interview the Abbott of the Panagia monastery in Cyprus put it this way, “Christ himself ... told us that not only are we capable of exploring God but that we can also live with Him, become one with Him. And the organ by which we can achieve this is neither our senses nor our logic but our heart.”

Does that mean we check our brains at the door? Of course not. We are bidden to love God with all our minds as well. Does that mean that theology is not important? Of course not. Without theology to guide us, direct us, instruct us, and help us see things we might otherwise not see, our spirituality would quickly become the privatized expression of our own wants and needs.

But it does mean that we need to practice standing prayerfully before God with the mind in the heart, to quote those well-known words of the 19th century Russian saint, Theophan the Recluse. By this he meant that praying to God requires our intention, our mindful intention, to seek God, to listen to God, and to be open to the presence of Christ’s indwelling Spirit in our hearts.

All is Grace, but being aware of Christ’s presence requires collaborative practice, the kind of practice that is indispensable if we are to acquire the mind of Christ. It is not an easy thing to do, for it requires commitment and ongoing conversion in the context of Christian community. When we look closely at the lives of men and women of faith throughout the Christian tradition, we find that for all their differences in culture, language, and the time in which they lived, it is evident that they, whether cloistered or in the world, were all grounded in that kind of spiritual practice, in what became known as Contemplatio in Actione, literally “contemplation in action” but which is best understood as “doing the work of Christ while grounded in Christ”.

I mentioned earlier how surprised I was to realize that the most significant influences on my personal integration and priestly formation have been, and continue to be, the cultivation of hesychia through regular contemplative prayer, especially the Jesus Prayer, and a greater ability to understand and move through difficult times in my life from the perspective of purgation. Let me share a few tentative observations about these experiences.

Experience has shown me that purgation and hesychia can help, slowly but surely, to de-center the ego. Contrary to what I may have feared these experiences did not obliterate my ego or impaired my sense of self. On the contrary, they have imbued me with a more realistic sense of who I am. They have strengthened my identity. Neither have I experienced purgation and hesychia as an invitation to quietism, to a spiritual passivity that sits back in the hope that God will take care of things. On the contrary, it has made me more aware that the spiritual path cannot be engaged in halfheartedly but requires our best efforts.

At the same time I find myself less interested in successful outcomes than I used to be. What Anthony Bloom once said resonates with me. “What I aim at,” he wrote, “is to live within a situation and to be totally engrossed in it and yet free from involvement ... The only question I keep asking myself in life is: what should I do at this particular moment? What should I say? All you can do is to be at every single moment as true as you can with all the power in your being - and then leave it to God to use you, even despite yourself.”

The practice of contemplative prayer has helped me to trust more in the reality of God whether that presence is affectively felt or not. It has given me more freedom from the endemic forces of emotivism and materialism. Cultivating hesychia is helping me to move from abstraction to participation, from my head to my heart. This is slowly overcoming the disconnect that for so long has existed in me between theological abstraction and the reality of God and daily life.

Purgation and hesychia have also, again quite unexpectedly, contributed to the healing of memories. This has been a great blessing. Memories that have to do with traumatic experiences in my life, unresolved conflicts, missed opportunities, and many other burdens have kept my ego busy trying to resolve, overcome, and control even though such efforts rarely succeeded and usually only added to a sense of failure. The healing of memories is enormously liberating.

Purgation and hesychia have made me profoundly aware of the importance of authentic Christian community. In our weekly formation meetings at Bexley Hall Seminary we, both faculty and students, spend time sitting in contemplative silence together. It has confirmed the truth of what Simone Weil once said, “For nothing among human things has such power to keep our gaze fixed ever more intensely upon God, than friendship for the friends of God.” And it has taught me that solitude, learning to be by myself, is a prerequisite for being able to participate fully in community. Just as the ability to participate in community is needed for true solitude.

Finally, it has moved me to a more Christocentric understanding faith and ministry. It has made the Indwelling Spirit of our Lord more of a reality for me. It has made me much more aware than I used to be of our need to be grounded in this Spirit, and by doing so, to reflect that Spirit as best we can in our life and ministry.

Pastores Dabo Vobis More than a decade ago Pope John Paul II gave the title Pastores Dabo Vobis, meaning Shepherds I Give You, to his important Apostolic Exhortation on the Formation of Priests. This title was taken from a passage in Jeremiah where, in a time of political uncertainty and turmoil much like ours, God promises his disheartened people, “I will give you shepherds after my own heart” , shepherds who would be there for them and with them so that God’s people no longer would have to be afraid. In that same Apostolic Exhortation the Pope emphasized that, “The priest’s fundamental relationship is to Jesus Christ, head and shepherd.”

I want to conclude this lecture by sharing an experience which, in an immediate and compelling way, helped me understand this fundamental relationship between our Lord as head and shepherd and the pastoral and priestly ministry to which we have been called. In the early 1990s I participated in a two year long program in spiritual direction at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Bethesda, Maryland. During one of the several long retreats that were part of that program, I was introduced to praying with ikons. The retreat leader, Tilden Edwards, told us about the rich tradition of ikons in the Eastern Orthodox Church and their role in liturgy and personal prayer.

He made clear that you do not pray to ikons but with ikons. The most important thing in an ikon, he pointed out, are its eyes. “You pray with the ikon looking at yourself as if God were looking at you through the eyes of the ikon.” He had brought two famous ikons for our group to pray with, the Vladimir Madonna from the 12th century, the Blessed Virgin holding the infant Jesus, and a Pantokrator Christ, meaning “Christ the Ruler of All”, an ikon from the 6th century, which can still be seen in the Monastery of St. Catherine on the Sinai peninsula.

The ikons had been set up on tables with chairs in front of them so that several people could sit and pray with one ikon at a time. Right away I felt strongly drawn to the Sinai Pantokrator. I had never seen a depiction of Jesus that I thought resembled what he may have actually looked like. I must admit that I felt a bit uneasy at first. I was raised in the Reformed tradition and worries about idolatry began to arise in my mind. But after a while I was able to let go of my anxiety, and I asked God to help me be open to the presence of the Spirit.

Remembering what Tilden had said about looking at yourself through the eyes of the ikon as if God were looking at you, I noticed that Jesus’ right eye seemed to take everything in, very diagnostically, almost like an X-ray. And the left eye, with a faint tear trickling down our Lord’s cheek, conveyed profound compassion. At that point something completely unexpected happened. I burst into tears. I had this strong sense of God seeing me through the eyes of this ikon of Jesus, seeing right through me, seeing all the parts of me that I was not proud of or felt badly about, all my sins and errors, but also seeing me with a look of incredible compassion, making me know that I was accepted, that I too am loved.

It was a profound moment in my spiritual journey. The experience with the Sinai Pantokrator showed me a more hesychastic way to pray. It taught me how to be more open to the presence of our Lord’s spirit of compassion and truth which sees us for what we are, warts and all, but which also embraces us in healing love. That day I understood in a new and profound way how God knows me through and through and yet loves me. This experience helped me know beyond a doubt that the goal of spiritual practice is to acquire the mind of Christ. This is not an easy time to be a priest or deacon but it helps me to remember that we are not called to be successful or victorious but to be faithful, to acquire the mind of Christ, to be his ikons in the world, and to reflect his compassion and truthfulness to all those with whom we come in contact.

May the faculty, students and graduates of Bovendonk continue to find their identity in Christ, may they move through good and bad times trusting Christ, may they know Christ through the experience of his presence, and may they be his ikons in the ministry to which they have been called. Laus Deo!

[1] I was invited to give this address by the Rev. Matthieu (Matt) Ham, the Dean or Rector, as he is called in the Netherlands, of the Priester en Diakenopleiding Bovendonk, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of this innovative Roman Catholic Seminary in the Bisdom or Diocese of Breda. After living abroad for more than four decades, it is easier for me to write in English as I discovered when I attempted to compose this lecture in Dutch. For that reason I am especially grateful to Drs. A. G. A. van Heeswijk for providing the Dutch translation and to Dr. J. H. N. Kerssemakers for his support. Both Ad and Jacques are psychologists and active in the KSGV (Katholiek Studiecentrum voor Geestelijke Volksgezondheid). Ad is a member of its Redactiecommissie and Jacques is its Studiesecretaris. This was address was published in The Anglican Catholic, Vol. XVI, Summer 2004, pp. 22-44.

[3] cf. Psalm 46:10, Be still, and know that I am God!The imperative Be still in Hebrew (rapah/rfpa) does not mean Do not speak but Relax you arms [body]. And know (yada’/yfda) means a total knowing, not just with the mind but with the heart and body. For an excellent introduction to the Jesus Prayer, see Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality (SLG Press, Fairacres Publication 43, 1996).

[4] These priests are (in alphabetical order): the Very Rev. Martin Boler, OSB, the Rev. Dr. John A. Colacino, C.PP.S., the Rev. Canon Carl Gerdau, the Very Rev. Dr. John R. Kevern, and the Rt. Rev. Kenneth Price.

[5] This examination, known as the General Ordination Examination, covers the seven canonical areas: Bible, Church History, Theology, Ethics, Liturgics and Church Music, Ascetical and Pastoral Theology.

[6] Joseph C. Frisch, A Second Chance to Become Priests, Homiletic & Pastoral Review, May 1999.

[9] Like Bovendonk, Bexley Hall Seminary is committed to making part-time, non-residential theological education available to those who cannot afford to take off the required time to complete their training in a residential seminary. One of Bexley’s challenges in devising its curriculum for part-time and non-residential students was how to maintain the integrity of traditional academic disciplines in tandem with a program of spiritual formation that is more than window dressing. I was eager to see how this challenge was handled at Bovendonk. For more information about Bexley Hall Seminary, I refer the reader to its website: www.bexley.edu.anglican.org

[10] I am indebted to the Rev. Dr. John A. Colacino, C.PP.S. for helpful historical information and theological insight regarding the three-fold path of illumination, purgation and union.

[13] For a clear exposition of the role of logismoi in spiritual askesis, see Chapter Nine Invisible Intruders in Kyriakos C. Markides, The Silent Mountain: A Search for Orthodox Spiritiuality, Doubleday, 2001, pp. 115-130.

[16] The retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong and the Cambridge theologian Don Cupitt are leaders in this movement. Representative of their writings are Spong’s Christianity must Change or Die (HarperSanFrancisco, 1998) and Cupitt’s After God (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997). An article by the feminist theologian Manuela Kalsky in a recent issue of Volzin, “Ik wil graag dat God ongrijpbaar blijft”, espouses a similar viewpoint (25 July, 2003, pp. 6-9).

[20] Quoted in Irenee Hausherr, SJ, Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East (Cistercian Publications, 1982), p. 1.

[21]Psalm 51:11.

[22] In a recent interview in the NRC Handelsblad (August 3, 2003) Prof. Dr. J. Janssen who teaches psychology of religion at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, was asked how unbelief can be understood from the perspective that religion is biologically based. He answered as follows (my translation), “If we understand religion to be [the expression of] a psychological function, then unbelief can also be understood this way. I refer in particular to the certainty [the feeling of being right] which can accompany such a conviction [emotivism!]. In this way unbelief can go together with feelings of superiority towards those benighted people who believe that death is not the end.”

[26] John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (World Wisdom, 2003) p. 37.

[27] The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Abba Anthony #4, p. 2.

[28] The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Abba Anthony #5, p. 2.

[29] L. William Countryman, Living on the Border of the Holy: Renewing the Priesthood of All, Morehouse (1999).

[30] Panagia means ”Most Holy” and refers to the Theotokos, Mary the Mother of God.

[31] The Mountain of Silence, p. 43.

[32] The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology. Compiled by Igumen Chariton of Valamo, Translated by E. Kadloubovsky and E. M. Palmer, Edited with an introduction by Timothy Ware (Faber and Faber Paperback, 1997), p. 53. The faithful in St. Theophan’s time prayed standing up.

[1] I was invited to give this address by the Rev. Matthieu (Matt) Ham, the Dean or Rector, as he is called in the Netherlands, of the Priester en Diakenopleiding Bovendonk, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of this innovative Roman Catholic Seminary in the Bisdom or Diocese of Breda. After living abroad for more than four decades, it is easier for me to write in English as I discovered when I attempted to compose this lecture in Dutch. For that reason I am especially grateful to Drs. A. G. A. van Heeswijk for providing the Dutch translation and to Dr. J. H. N. Kerssemakers for his support. Both Ad and Jacques are psychologists and active in the KSGV (Katholiek Studiecentrum voor Geestelijke Volksgezondheid). Ad is a member of its Redactiecommissie and Jacques is its Studiesecretaris. This was address was published in The Anglican Catholic, Vol. XVI, Summer 2004, pp. 22-44.

[3] cf. Psalm 46:10, Be still, and know that I am God!The imperative Be still in Hebrew (rapah/rfpa) does not mean Do not speak but Relax you arms [body]. And know (yada’/yfda) means a total knowing, not just with the mind but with the heart and body. For an excellent introduction to the Jesus Prayer, see Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality (SLG Press, Fairacres Publication 43, 1996).

[4] These priests are (in alphabetical order): the Very Rev. Martin Boler, OSB, the Rev. Dr. John A. Colacino, C.PP.S., the Rev. Canon Carl Gerdau, the Very Rev. Dr. John R. Kevern, and the Rt. Rev. Kenneth Price.

[5] This examination, known as the General Ordination Examination, covers the seven canonical areas: Bible, Church History, Theology, Ethics, Liturgics and Church Music, Ascetical and Pastoral Theology.

[6] Joseph C. Frisch, A Second Chance to Become Priests, Homiletic & Pastoral Review, May 1999.

[9] Like Bovendonk, Bexley Hall Seminary is committed to making part-time, non-residential theological education available to those who cannot afford to take off the required time to complete their training in a residential seminary. One of Bexley’s challenges in devising its curriculum for part-time and non-residential students was how to maintain the integrity of traditional academic disciplines in tandem with a program of spiritual formation that is more than window dressing. I was eager to see how this challenge was handled at Bovendonk. For more information about Bexley Hall Seminary, I refer the reader to its website: www.bexley.edu.anglican.org

[10] I am indebted to the Rev. Dr. John A. Colacino, C.PP.S. for helpful historical information and theological insight regarding the three-fold path of illumination, purgation and union.

[13] For a clear exposition of the role of logismoi in spiritual askesis, see Chapter Nine Invisible Intruders in Kyriakos C. Markides, The Silent Mountain: A Search for Orthodox Spiritiuality, Doubleday, 2001, pp. 115-130.

[16] The retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong and the Cambridge theologian Don Cupitt are leaders in this movement. Representative of their writings are Spong’s Christianity must Change or Die (HarperSanFrancisco, 1998) and Cupitt’s After God (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997). An article by the feminist theologian Manuela Kalsky in a recent issue of Volzin, “Ik wil graag dat God ongrijpbaar blijft”, espouses a similar viewpoint (25 July, 2003, pp. 6-9).

[20] Quoted in Irenee Hausherr, SJ, Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East (Cistercian Publications, 1982), p. 1.

[21]Psalm 51:11.

[22] In a recent interview in the NRC Handelsblad (August 3, 2003) Prof. Dr. J. Janssen who teaches psychology of religion at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, was asked how unbelief can be understood from the perspective that religion is biologically based. He answered as follows (my translation), “If we understand religion to be [the expression of] a psychological function, then unbelief can also be understood this way. I refer in particular to the certainty [the feeling of being right] which can accompany such a conviction [emotivism!]. In this way unbelief can go together with feelings of superiority towards those benighted people who believe that death is not the end.”

[26] John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (World Wisdom, 2003) p. 37.

[27] The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Abba Anthony #4, p. 2.

[28] The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Abba Anthony #5, p. 2.

[29] L. William Countryman, Living on the Border of the Holy: Renewing the Priesthood of All, Morehouse (1999).

[30] Panagia means ”Most Holy” and refers to the Theotokos, Mary the Mother of God.

[31] The Mountain of Silence, p. 43.

[32] The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology. Compiled by Igumen Chariton of Valamo, Translated by E. Kadloubovsky and E. M. Palmer, Edited with an introduction by Timothy Ware (Faber and Faber Paperback, 1997), p. 53. The faithful in St. Theophan’s time prayed standing up.

April 21, 2015

On January 9, Archdeacon Cluett, Fr. Denny Blauser and I left for Kajo Kejion our ninth annual New Hope school support trip. Rick was a welcome addition onto the trip. His warm, outgoing style connected with the people there both on a personal and diocesan level. He was like a man out of a time machine, having visited Kajo Keji in the early 2000s and again in 2007 – able to clearly see the dramatic change. What we experienced was nothing short of a miracle.

April 17, 2015

(1) The Leadership News is published on or near the second Thursday of each month, and will consist primarily of information that clergy, lay leaders and church staff need to do their work. This isn't to say that all are not invited to sign up for it. Find the April issue here and the March issue here. To receive it monthly by email, sign up at the bottom of Leadership News, at "Join our Mailing List." (2) Our new monthly Diocesan E-newsletter is published on or near the fourth Thursday. Find the February and March issues, and sign up here to receive future issues by email as soon as they are published. Actually, you may sign up also at the bottom of the newsletter itself. The content of the monthly newsletter will be posted also on the DioBeth website and linked to on Facebook and in our Twitter stream. (3) The newSpin newsletter is published by Bill Lewellis on or near the first and third Thursdays. To receive it by email, please email Jo Trepagnier. Otherwise, find the newSpin newsletter at the newSpin blog.

• Trending? … [ENS] The Rt. Rev. J. Scott Mayer, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northwest Texas, is the nominee for provisional bishop of Fort Worth. Mayer will continue as bishop of Northwest Texas while also serving as bishop of Fort Worth under the proposed arrangement, which will continue until the Fort Worth diocese is positioned to elect a full time bishop. The plan calls for him to split his time between the two dioceses. The dioceses are not merging. This model of episcopacy is similar to the arrangement that currently exists with the Rt. Rev. Sean Rowe, who serves as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania and as provisional bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem. Read on.

• Vatican ends LCWR oversight: No ‘oops’ in Latin … [dotCommonwealThat’s one of the responses to the unexpected news today that the Vatican has ended its three-year oversight of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Quoted in an AP story, Christopher Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in New Jersey, “called the announcement a complete vindication of the sisters' group and American nuns in general. ‘Anything coming out of the Vatican this morning is nothing other than a fig leaf because they can't say “oops” in Latin.’”• Vatican ends controversial investigation of U.S. nuns with olive branch … [RNS] The Vatican officially ended a controversial investigation of American nuns with a face-saving compromise. A brief statement from Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and leader of the effort to rein in the nuns, who were seen as too liberal, shed little light on what the long-running investigation achieved and seemed aimed at moving past the contentious saga. Mueller said he was confident that the mission of the nuns “is rooted in the Tradition of the Church” and that they are “essential for the flourishing of religious life in the Church.” The original report had accused the nuns of promoting “certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.” In another indicator of the thaw in relations, the delegation of American nuns met with Francis for 50 minutes in a warm encounter that seemed to underscore the sisters’ affinity for the pope’s focus on social justice and his pastoral outreach to the world. Read on.• "It's about as close to an apology, I would think, as the Catholic Church is officially going to render." … [Eileen Burke-Sullivan, a theologian, after Pope Francis ended a takeover of an American nuns' group and met with four of its leaders for nearly an hour.]

• Smelling B.S. a mile away … [The Atlantic] Emma Green talks to Rachel Held Evans about why pastors shouldn’t wear skinny jeans or play punk music at church if they want to bring millennials back to Christianity: “We can smell B.S. from a mile away”

• What will the world’s religious landscape look like a few decades from now? … A new Pew Research Center study attempts to answer that question by projecting the changing size of eight major global religious groups through the year 2050 based on a variety of demographic factors. See also a Fact Tank post with some of the key findings, sortable tables with projections for nearly 200 countries and territories and an interactive website with this and other data on global religion.

• Why people with no religion … are projected to decline as a share of the world's population. Read on at FactTank.

Episcopal/Anglican• Advancing to a paperless General Convention 2015 ... [Episcopal Church public affairs] Plans have been underway for over one-year to ensure the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church is as paperless as possible. In this “Convention of Screens,” much of the legislative work will be displayed electronically on tablets or on projection screens in the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies. To that end, each registered deputy and bishop along with the first clergy alternate/first lay alternate will be provided an iPad for their use during General Convention. The iPads will have access to the Virtual Binder, an application that replicates electronically most of what previously had been provided in the physical binders that have been part of General Convention. The iPads will also contain reference materials such as Constitutions and Canons, the Journal, and The Blue Book, as well as other materials supportive of the legislation processes of General Convention. Read on.

• Two of Philadelphia 11 say it’s still a struggle for women in the church…[The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee, Pam Strickland]They were compared to witches and called names by male priests that you would least expect to hear coming from the mouths of men of the cloth. Nearly 41 years after becoming two of the first women priests in The Episcopal Church, they don’t regret their decision and recognize that despite much progress, there is still a need to fight for women’s proper role in the church. The Rev. Alison Cheek, the first woman to publicly preside over an Episcopal Church Eucharist in the United States, and the Rev. Carter Heyward, a prolific author on feminist theology and retired professor at Episcopal Divinity School, were part of an April 11 symposium at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Knoxville, Tennessee, sponsored by East Tennessee Episcopal Church Women. Cheek and Heyward were two of the Philadelphia 11 who were ordained in Philadelphia by three retired bishops in July 1974 causing uproar in the national church. Although women’s ordination was not specifically prohibited, by practice it had never been allowed. Read on.

•• House of Deputies March newsletter … Here. It includes: Blue Book reports now online … The General Convention Office has begun posting reports to the 78th General Convention on its website. The reports, known as the "Blue Book," are available in English and Spanish and can be downloaded as they are posted. In late spring, when all reports are available, they will also be posted in an aggregate downloadable file (or files). The Blue Book will not be printed as it has been in years past. Church Publishing may make a print copy available for purchase. As of March 30, reports from three joint standing committees, seven standing commissions, and two task forces have been posted.• Resources … way below.

SpiritSpin• Centering Prayer … [Contemplative Outreach] is a receptive method of silent prayer that prepares us to receive the gift of contemplative prayer, prayer in which we experience God's presence within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than consciousness itself. This method of prayer is both a relationship with God and a discipline to foster that relationship. Read on.

• Imagine … [The Imitation Game] Monica and I recently watched The Imitation Game. I loved this quote, kind of a refrain in the story: “Sometimes, it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.”

• Finding your bliss … [Brain Pickings] In 1985, mythologist and writer Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904–October 30, 1987) sat down with legendary interviewer and idea-monger Bill Moyers for a lengthy conversation at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in California, which continued the following year at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The resulting 24 hours of raw footage were edited down to six one-hour episodes and broadcast on PBS in 1988, shortly after Campbell's death, in what became one of the most popular series in the history of public television. Read on.

• Spirit Resources ... way below.

Columns, Sermons, Reflections and other Spin

•• Your sermon? … If you have a sermon you might like uploaded to the newSpin blog and linked to from the newSpin newsletter, point bill.lewellis@gmail.com to it online.

• Starving for wisdom … [NYTimes, Nicholas Kristof] “We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.” That epigram from E.O. Wilson captures the dilemma of our era. Yet the solution of some folks is to disdain wisdom. Read on.

• Oppression Is Not a Law of Nature … [Commonweal] An Interview with Noam Chomsky. Read on.

• Pro-discrimination 'religious freedom' laws are dangerous … [WaPo Op-Ed, Tim Cook] There’s something very dangerous happening in states across the country.A wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states, would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors. Some, such as the bill enacted in Indiana last week that drew a national outcry and one passed in Arkansas, say individuals can cite their personal religious beliefs to refuse service to a customer or resist a state nondiscrimination law. Read on.

• In Indiana, using religion as a cover for bigotry … [NYTimes Editorial]Here.

Where Religion, Culture and Politics Might Intersect• U.S. Catholic bishops back Obama on Iran … [RNS] The U.S. Catholic bishops have welcomed the Obama administration’s tentative agreement aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and their top spokesman on international affairs bluntly warned Congress against doing anything to undermine it. Read on.• Will the popularity of Pope Francis affect the 2016 election? … [Crux] Some think the pope’s September address to Congress and the United Nations could set the stage for the real test of his impact in American culture: the 2016 presidential election. Miguel Diaz, a former ambassador to the Holy See and now a theology professor at Chicago’s Loyola University, said the pope’s emphasis on “servant leadership and the pedagogy of mercy” could convince Catholic bishops and politicians here to reassess their own approach to public life. “This understanding of leadership provides an invitation to our own local and national leaders to continue to build one nation out of a diversity of peoples,” he told Crux, “and to follow Pope Francis’ example of leading by protecting and defending the dignity and rights of the most vulnerable persons within our country.”Will bishops focus primarily on life and marriage issues as in elections past, or will they take a cue from Francis and spend more energy on other issues that also are part of their agenda, such as poverty, immigration, and international religious liberty? “The full impact of Francis’s influence will have to await 2016, since it is usually during presidential cycles that issues dear to Catholic bishops’ hearts, like contraception and abortion, get a national airing,” Tom Kington wrote at Politico last November. Read on.

• Five things to watch as the 2016 campaign gets underway … [RNS, Tom Ehrich] As presidential candidacies multiply and campaigning accelerates, we can expect much tawdriness to occur. These are difficult times in American democracy. Money will pour into negative campaigning and ideological posturing. Lies will become the norm. Every word will evoke counterattack, and facts will lose their currency. Barbed sound bites will be mistaken for wisdom. Bullies claiming to be “Christian” will be among the loudest. On both sides. What are people of faith to do? Read on.

• The terminally ill's right to die: a debate … [NCR, Maureen Fiedler] Catholic Fr. Thomas Petri, an instructor in moral theology and academic dean of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., and Episcopal Bishop Eugene Robinson, retired bishop of the episcopal diocese of New Hampshire and now at the Center for American Progress, debated the issue. They left no stone unturned in their pointed but civilized exchange. Read on to where you can listen.

Evangelism/Stewardship/Worship/Church Growth• Peter Singer on the ethics of philanthropy: his latest goal is to get people to give away one-third of their income … [WSJournal, Alexandra Wolfe] Peter Singer would sooner donate a kidney than sponsor a concert hall. So when entertainment mogul David Geffen gave $100 million in early March for the renovation of Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York—it will soon be renamed David Geffen Hall—Mr. Singer questioned why people thought he was doing so much good. Over Skype from his home in Melbourne, Australia, Mr. Singer says that he doesn’t understand “how anyone could think that giving to the renovation of a concert hall that could impact the lives of generally well-off people living in Manhattan and well-off tourists that come to New York could be the best thing that you could do with $100 million.” He notes, for example, that a donation of less than $100 could restore sight to someone who is blind. Mr. Geffen declined to comment. In his new book, The Most Good You Can Do, Mr. Singer argues that people should give a substantial percentage—ideally a third—of their income to charities. Mr. Singer himself has given away at least 10% of his income for 40 years; that number has gradually risen to between a quarter and a third of his income. He advocates focusing donations on the developing world. Once the world’s more basic needs have been met, he says, “then help people listen to concerts in beautiful concert halls.” It’s a controversial way to encourage philanthropy. Some critics find it uncharitable—and counterproductive—to wag a disapproving finger at any sort of charitable giving, or to rank one type above another. Supporting cultural institutions through private donations, they argue, improves the quality of life for an entire society. Read on

• Resources ... way below

In the Media• Wilkes-Barre Episcopal church tries to make neighborhood friendlier with free soup … [Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre] Members of the St. Clement & St. Peter Episcopal Church on Hanover Street were handing out free cups of homemade chicken soup Saturday afternoon. Congregation members stood in the street with posters saying “Free Soup,” waving to passers-by, and even delivering the soup to some drivers. Five gallons of homemade chicken soup was prepared for the event. It was given away, all free of charge. Read on. Also here.

Rest in Peace• Gardner C. Taylor, 96 … [NYTimes] powerful voice for civil rights, a grandson of slaves who became an influential voice for civil rights and one of the nation's most eloquent churchmen, died on Easter Day, April 5. For 42 years, until his retirement in 1990, Mr. Taylor was the senior pastor of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. But his impact as a speaker, writer and political force in the city and in a nation of long-segregated schools, churches and other institutions reached far beyond his 10,000-member congregation. Read on.Obituary here.

• Sarah Brady, 73 … [NYTimes]who became a tireless gun control activist after her husband, the White House press secretary James S. Brady, was shot and left partly paralyzed in the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981, died on Good Friday, April 3. Read on. Obituary here.

• Robert Schuller, 88 … [RNS]Televangelist Robert H. Schuller, who attempted to integrate the teachings of John Calvin with the positive thinking of Norman Vincent Peale, and lost his famed Crystal Cathedral to bankruptcy, died April 2. He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the summer of 2013. After becoming one of the nation’s best-known pastors, Schuller watched his megachurch empire — started in a drive-in theater — crumble amid huge debt and family squabbles over leadership. In 2011, a bankruptcy proceeding reached a $57.5 million deal to permit the Catholic Diocese of Orange to purchase the iconic glass sanctuary in Garden Grove, Calif. The remaining Protestant congregation, Shepherd’s Grove, moved to a Roman Catholic church building with half the seating capacity of its former home, led by Schuller’s grandson, Bobby Schuller. Read on.[Religion Dispatches, Cathleen Falsani] Before Oprah, there was the Hour of Power … A native of tiny, rural Alton, Iowa, Schuller was an ordained minister of the Reformed Church in America and served a congregation in Chicago before his denomination asked him to move to Southern California and plant a church. With his wife Arvella (who died last year) serving as organist and “$500 in assets, he rented the Orange Drive-In Theatre and conducted Sunday services from the tarpapered roof of its snack bar,” according to Schuller’s biography on the Hour of Power website. “One hundred persons attended that first Sunday, all in their cars. Dr. Schuller, who believe[d] this outdoor ministry experience helped inspire him to later build the all-glass Crystal Cathedral, often state[d], ‘It was there I fell in love with the sky!’” Read on.[NYTimes] Built an empire preaching self-belief. Here. [Bill] If you knew the late Bishop Mark Dyer, look at a photo of Schuller in one of the stories above. Mark told me he was frequently stopped in airports by people who mistook him for Schuller.

TaleSpin

• How Christians turned against gay conversion therapy… [The Atlantic, Jonathan Merritt] Throughout the 1980s and 90s, the Christian right poured money and muscle into promoting the message that homosexuality was a curable disorder. It advocated conversion therapy, which promised to turn gay men and women straight. But last week, when President Obama announced his support for a national ban on such therapies, few voices on the Christian right spoke up in protest. The announcement confirmed the evaporation of support for these approaches among the communities that once embraced them. As Alan Chambers, who once ran America’s largest ex-gay ministry, told me, “sexual orientation doesn’t change.” …In 2011—roughly half a century from gay conversion therapy’s heyday—only 24 percent of Americans said they believe it works. The number is presumably even lower today. While some disparate pockets of support remain, they are waning. The day when ex-gay therapy enjoyed legitimacy in mainstream medicine, media, religion and society is now heading for the history books. And in its place, there is a growing consensus that such practices are distasteful, irresponsible, unethical—and perhaps should be illegal. Read on.

• The radical vision of Toni Morrison … [NYTimes Magazine] In 1984, Toni Morrison was a single mother and a novelist with four books to her name, three of which — “The Bluest Eye,” “Sula” and “Song of Solomon” — are now considered classics. She had recently stopped working as an editor at Random House and published the essay “Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation” in an anthology. The essay in many ways articulated the terms that would define her writing. She noted that the novel “has always functioned for the class or the group that wrote it.” The novel that concerned itself with black Americans was remarkable and needed, she wrote, because it accomplished “certain very strong functions,” now that “we don’t live in places where we can hear those stories anymore” and “parents don’t sit around and tell their children those classical, mythological archetypal stories that we heard years ago.” The black novel was important because it could “suggest what the conflicts are, what the problems are,” not necessarily as a means of solving them but as a way of recording and reflecting them … At 84, she sits comfortably as one of the greatest authors in American history, even as her uncompromising dream for black literature seems farther away than ever. Read on.

BackSpin – Do you remember?• Episcopal priest Robert Castle[Diocesan Life, October 1994] who has had a long history of involvement in AIDS ministry, preached at the HIV/AIDS Healing Service at the Cathedral, October 30, 1994. Castle was the star of the 1993 PBS special, Cousin Bobby, director Johathan Demme's story of reconnection wih his activist Episcopal priest cousin. I tells of the dedication of one white cleric who works for social justice with his primarily African-American and Latino parishioners. He also played the father of the person with AIDS (Tom Hanks character) in the film, Philadelphia.

• Ecunet … [Diocesan Life, November 1994] The Diocese of Bethlehem began to establish a network for electronic communication. It was called Ecunet.

Roman Catholic• Pittsburgh diocese eliminating fees for marriage annulments … [AP, Joe Mandak] — The Diocese of Pittsburgh has eliminated fees for annulments in keeping with comments by Pope Francis that the church should make it easier for some divorced Roman Catholics to remarry and receive other sacraments. Read on.

Diocese of Allentown ... Here.• Two parishes in Berks County … [WFMZ-TV] St. Anthony's of Padua Church in the Millmont section of Reading, at 501 Summit Avenue, will be consolidated into St. John Baptist de LaSalle Church at 420 Holland Street in Shillington. Read on.

Diocese of Scranton ... Here.• More changes for churches in the Diocese of Scranton? … [Wilkes-Barre Times Leader] In an unusual move, Bishop Joseph Bambera released a recorded sermon played at churches throughout the diocese over the weekend suggesting such changes may be on the way. Noting the diocese continues to lose more priests than it is gaining, Bambera talked of parishes with deacons, rather than priests, serving the pastor’s administrative roles, or even a well-qualified and trained lay person taking on the responsibilities. He repeatedly stressed “we need to consider carefully the options that the church provides” in order to maintain parishes. Read on.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ... Here. Catholic News Service ... Here.

• In full-page ad: Infuential Catholics call for removal of San Francisco archbishop … [NCR] A powerful cross-section of Catholics in the San Francisco archdiocese is asking Pope Francis to replace Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, saying the archbishop has "fostered an atmosphere of division and intolerance." In an April 16 full-page advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle, more than 100 signers say the embattled archbishop pursues "a single-issue agenda," coercing teachers with a "morality code which violates individual consciences as well as California labor laws" and "[isolating] himself from our community" as he "relies ... on a tiny group of advisors recruited from outside of our diocese and estranged from their own religious orders." Read on.

The Vatican• Why the papal encyclical on the environment will matter … [NCR, Jamie Manson] As anticipation builds in progressive Catholic circles about the forthcoming papal encyclical on the environment, Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, co-directors of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, are busy contemplating its potential impact on stakeholders outside of the Catholic church, including environmental scientists, lawmakers, and leaders of world religions. To explore the possibilities, Tucker and Grim gathered a panel of experts across various disciplines to discuss "Pope Francis and the Environment: Why his new climate encyclical matters" last week at Yale University. "This encyclical is by no means the first word the Catholic church has spoken on the environment," Teresa Berger, professor of Catholic theology at Yale Divinity School, reminded the audience in her introductory statement. "But it has not been spoken of before in an encyclical." Read on.

BookSpin• Bad Faith, by Paul A. Offitt … [Reviewed for the NYTimes by Abraham Verghese] explores how religious beliefs can undermine medical care. Paul A. Offit, a professor of vaccinology and pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, tells us that our ability to protect children from abuse at the hands of parents is somewhat recent. “At the time of Jesus’ birth, infanticide was legal. Children weren’t considered to be people; they were property no different than slaves. So parents could do whatever they wanted to them. Children were stoned, beaten, flung into dung heaps, starved to death, traded for beds, sexually abused.” As Offit writes: “It is hard to overstate the influence of Jesus’ teachings on the fate of children.” But, he goes on, “given Jesus’ love for children, his support of physicians and his belief that a God who abhors suffering and comforts the afflicted would never give children diseases as a test of faith, how did we come to a place where parents, in the name of Jesus, are willing to ignore the screams of meningitis, the breathlessness of pneumonia and the disfiguring erosion of cancer when lifesaving therapies are at hand During the late '60s, Walter Mondale worked to introduce the landmark Child Abuse Protection and Treatment Act (Capta). Two powerful men in the Nixon administration, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, both famous for their roles in the Watergate scandal, and both Christian Scientists successfully influenced the insertion of a religious exemption into Capta: “No parent or guardian who in good faith is providing a child treatment solely by spiritual means — such as prayer — according to the tenets and practices of a recognized church through a duly accredited practitioner shall for that reason alone be considered to have neglected the child. The Supreme Court has never ruled on a faith-healing case resulting in the death of a child.Read on.

• Resources … below.

Podcasts• If you are interested in listening to podcasts … [Bill] The following podcasts may be found with the Stitcher app. I enjoy all of them. Not in any particular order. 1. TED Radio Hour; 2. Slate's Political Gabfest; 3. The Moth Podcast; 4.This American Life; 5. Radiolab from WNYC; 6. Hourly News Summary from NPR; 7. APM: A Prairie Home Companion; 8. Fresh Air; 9. Science Friday; 10. PBS News Hour; 11. The Pulse, WHYY; 12. OnBeing with Krista Tippett; 13. 60 Minutes, CBS; 14. The Ethicists; 15. Popping Collars. More to come. If you have a favorite podcast, please tell Bill, who will tell the world.

Media/Films/TV/Music/Tech• Law & Order: SVU tears apart anti-vaxxers in episode with Jenny McCarthy lookalike… [WaPo] Law & Order: SVU went for the jugular with the anti-vaccine debate recently during an episode that guest-starred Missi Pyle bearing a suspicious resemblance to actress/TV host Jenny McCarthy, who is known as the celebrity face of the controversial anti-vaccination movement. Read on.

• More, i.e., Thomas, or Less … [The Tablet, Eamon Duffy] The television version of Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall is the latest account to challenge St Thomas More’s reputation as a courageous defender of the rights of conscience. Was he, in truth, a liberal icon, a religious fanatic or something in between? Judging by the media coverage, the BBC dramatisation of Hilary Mantel’s brilliant reimagining of the court of Henry VIII has unleashed a wave of Tudor frenzy. Great fiction based in fact, Wolf Hall seems set to shape a generation’s perception of what really happened in the most formative age in English history. For admirers of St Thomas More this could be bad news … More’s reputation has fallen on hard times. For centuries, he was an icon of innocent suffering for conscience’s sake; more recently, he has been represented as a hypocrite, a bigot and a persecutor. The More of Wolf Hall is the latest and most powerful example of this reversal. Mantel’s character is More as he was perceived by his enemies – a joyless puritan, a man whose social charm but cruel humour masked a steely religious bigotry. He is a sneering misogynist who enjoys humiliating the women in his household. Above all, he is a religious fanatic, flogging himself in a fear-driven piety, obsessively writing vitriolic and obscene polemical books, implacably hunting down defenceless Protestants, imprisoning and torturing them in his own cellars. Read on.Also [RNS, Kimberly Winston]The Many Thomases of Wolf Hall. Here.

SpiritSpin• The Book of Common Prayer ... every edition from 1549 to 1979. Here.• Prayers and Thanksgivings from the BCP ... Here.• The (Online) Book of Common Prayer ... Here.• The Daily Office ... can be read online in Rite I, Rite II or the New Zealand Prayer Book versions. At Mission St. Clare.• The Daily Office ... from the Diocese of Indianapolis. Here.• Daily Prayer ... a resource of Forward Movement. Here.• Holy Women, Holy Men ... Download Holy Women, Holy Men as a .pdf file.• Speaking to the Soul ... An Episcopal Café blog. Sermons, reflections, multimedia meditations and excerpts from books on spirituality. Here.• The Imitation of Christ ... Available free online.

Evangelism/Stewardship/Church Growth• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.

Media/Film/TV/Books/Podcasts/Music/Tech• Spirituality & Film ... Here.• Spirituality on DVD ... Here.• Books for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Audios for Spiritual Journeys ... Here.• Free eBooks by Project Gutenberg ... Here.• Free Audiobooks from LibriVox ... Here.• Free Audiobooks and eBooks ... Here and Here.• Google Books ... Millions of books you can preview or read free. Here.• The Online Books Page ... from UPenn. Here.• More free eBooks and Audiobooks ... [Techlicious] Here.• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told about your congregation, it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.• Communicate … Your Ministry, including Bill's Communication Biases and Communication-Evangelism. Here.

Religious Freedom Recap, our weekly look back at the top stories and developments on religious liberty around the world. - See more at: http://brianpellot.religionnews.com/2013/09/16/burkini-compromise-pope-hearts-atheists-dozen-muslim-march-religious-freedom-recap-sept-9-sept-16/#sthash.nA6J6Y1Y.dpuf

******************The newSpin newsletter is uploaded to the newSpin blog and posted on Bakery and on other diocesan lists of some 2,000 addresses. Many recipients forward it to others. It comes, of course, with some spin from the editor. The views expressed, implied or inferred in items or links contained in the newsletter or the blog do not represent the official view of the Diocese of Bethlehem unless expressed by or forwarded from the Bishop, the Standing Committee or the Archdeacon as an official communication. Comments are welcome on Bakery (if you are subscribed to that interactive list) and at the newSpin blog. At the newSpin blog, click in the right hand column on the title of the current newsletter. Then, make your comment below.

March 31, 2015

With the emergence of the mid-month Leadership News (second Thursday, approximate) and the end-of-month diocesan e-newsletter (fourth Thursday, approximate) … this newSpin newsletter will cease weekly publication and move to a first and third Thursday schedule, approximate. We have discontinued our DioBethSpin and ParishSpin sections. That news will appear in the new newsletters and on the DioBeth website.

• Indicates new item. •• Indicates repeat.

TopSpin• DioBeth's new monthly enewsletters

(1) The first issue of Leadership News was published mid March. It will continue to be published approximately on the second Thursday of each month, and will consist primarily of information that clergy, lay leaders and church staff need to do their work. This isn't to say that all are not invited to sign up for it. Find the mid-March issue here. To receive it monthly by email, sign up at the bottom of Leadership News, at "Join our Mailing List." (2) The second issue of our new monthly diocesan e-newsletter was published within the past week. Find the first and second issues, and sign up here to receive future issues by email as soon as they are published. Actually, you may sign up also at the bottom of the newsletter itself. The content of the monthly newsletter will be posted also on the DioBeth website and linked to on Facebook and in our Twitter stream.

• Triduum – In the dying is the rising … [Patrick Malloy]Here. The Triduum celebrates a dynamic that God revealed in Jesus. It is, at once, the dynamic of divine life and the dynamic of human life. Jesus, in his divinity, reveals that God forsakes everything for us mortals; and, when all is finished, God remains glorious. The human Jesus reveals that when mortals like us forsake everything for the sake of God, we share in God’s glory. The mystery is the same, whether we consider Jesus as the divine mortal or as the human God. All of this goes entirely against the grain and defies logic. Death and life are opposites; they cannot be intertwined. Yet, the story of Jesus is that they are. Anyone who would be Jesus’ disciple must claim it as true, even if it seems impossible.

• Barbara Crafton … [The Geranium Farm] This is the last Holy Week of my active ministry -- in future, I will participate in it, but I will not be the one responsible for letting these sober days lead the faithful through the death of Jesus and into his resurrection. Always in the past, I have steeled myself for the extra burden of sermons, the extra liturgies, the extra leaflets that must be prepared -- so much more must be done to make this week what it should be. Of course, I have never been the only one who worked hard in Holy Week. The choirs and their directors, the altar guild, the parish administrator, the sexton, the parents, those planning the different meals, the marshals for the Good Friday walk through town, the ushers, the lectors -- everybody responds to its quickening. I have always felt that exhaustion is just part of it. Now I wonder what Holy Week will be like when that is no longer so. Read on.

• The wicked irony of Holy Week … [Boston Globe, James Carroll] Once upon a time, believing Christians could begin their observance of Holy Week with a spirit of detached consolation. Reliving the last days of Jesus Christ through liturgy, Scripture reading, and meditation could open into a hopeful realm apart, for these were days when the great mystery of the faith was meant to show itself: not that Almighty God wills suffering, much less causes it, but that, in Jesus, God joins us in it. Suffering is not thereby removed, but it is given meaning. The Passion brings forward compassion, which means in its root “to suffer with.” Humans, in their worst hours, are not alone. But that was before the great 20th century interruption. The narrative of the death of Jesus can no longer be read, heard, or reenacted with such innocence. The wicked irony of Holy Week must now be acknowledged: Intended to transform suffering, these observances became, down through the ages, a transcendent source of suffering. The drama of God’s love became an immorality tale of hate. “Let his blood be upon us and upon our children,” the Gospel of Matthew has the Jewish crowd cry out, forcing an apparently benign Pontius Pilate to murder Jesus. Almost from then on, “the Jews,” as the Gospel refrain refers to them, were despised as “Christ-killers.” Read on.

• Revelation and Holy Week – Radical Truth Telling … [Faith Interrupted – Looking for God in the Gaps]Here. From the time this book was written - but, more specifically, in the last hundred years or so - Christians have been trying to *figure out* Revelation. Almost exclusively, these "understandings" have been focused on the end of the world, Rapture-oriented fake theologies. And it all utterly misses the point. Revelation belongs in the bible because it is a powerful critique on the powers that be. Then and now.

• Unraveling the church ban on gay sex … [NYTimes, The Stone, Gary Gutting] The time has come for the Roman Catholic Church to rethink its claim that homosexual behavior is immoral. Here’s how. Read on.• UK's first husband and wife team of bishops… [The Telegraph, UK] Here.

• Are slaves catching the fish you buy? … [Poynter, Kristen Hare, March 25] Reporters with the Associated Press found slaves in the Indonesian town of Benjina. During a yearlong investigation, the AP was able to trace fish caught by the slaves to Thai companies, which sold the fish to the U.S. "The AP also found a locked cell with eight slaves inside, and handed a video camera to s dockworker, himself a former slave, to take close-up footage. Under the cover of darkness, the AP team used a small wooden boat to approach a trawler with slaves who yelled to them, pleading for help to go home." From the full story: "Here, in the Indonesian island village of Benjina and the surrounding waters, hundred of trapped men represent one of the most desperate links criss-crossing between companies and countries in the seafood industry."

Episcopal/Anglican• Presiding Bishop’s Easter message 2015 ... [ENS] “We will find him already there before us, bringing new and verdant life,” Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori states in her Easter Message 2015. “The only place we will not find him is in the tomb.” In 2015, Easter is celebrated on April 5. The Presiding Bishop’s Easter message 2015 is available here in English, Spanish and French. Read on.

• House of Deputies March newsletter … Here. It includes: Blue Book reports now online … The General Convention Office has begun posting reports to the 78th General Convention on its website. The reports, known as the "Blue Book," are available in English and Spanish and can be downloaded as they are posted. In late spring, when all reports are available, they will also be posted in an aggregate downloadable file (or files). The Blue Book will not be printed as it has been in years past. Church Publishing may make a print copy available for purchase. As of March 30, reports from three joint standing committees, seven standing commissions, and two task forces have been posted.•• Central Pennsylvania diocese elects woman … [ENS, diocesan staff of CPA] The Rev. Canon Audrey Cady Scanlan was elected on March 14 as 11th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, pending the required consents from a majority of bishops with jurisdiction and standing committees of the Episcopal Church. Scanlan, 56, canon for mission collaboration and congregational life in the Diocese of Connecticut, was elected on the second ballot out of a field of three nominees. Read on.Resources … way below.

SpiritSpin•• An Analogy for Grace … [Written by Jim Naughton, September 25, 2014. Lovely. Insightful. Theologically astute. Not to be missed.] We take as a theological given that we don't deserve grace, but what we need to reckon with is the fact that we don't recognize it. It wears the wrong clothes and shows up in the wrong places at the wrong times. It comes in the guise of people we generally avoid. As a result, we fail to see it for what it is. We take the word of others--experts, advance teams--for what grace is and what it isn't, when we must pay attention and when we can walk on by. Perhaps we don't trust ourselves to recognize and respond to grace when we see it or hear it. Or perhaps life is constructed in such a way that grace needs references and a spot on our calendar before we can give it its due.Henry James once urged readers: "Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost." This is among the few spiritual disciplines that still make sense to me. Read on.

•• Before I Go: A Stanford neurosurgeon’s parting wisdom about life and time … [WaPo, via Stanford Medicine magazine, by Paul Kalanithi, Stanford University neurosurgeon] In residency, there’s a saying: The days are long, but the years are short … The years did, as promised, fly by. Six years passed in a flash, but then, heading into chief residency, I developed a classic constellation of symptoms — weight loss, fevers, night sweats, unremitting back pain, cough — indicating a diagnosis quickly confirmed: metastatic lung cancer. The gears of time ground down. While able to limp through the end of residency on treatment, I relapsed, underwent chemo and endured a prolonged hospitalization.Read on. Also, at Episcopal Café. [Paul Kalanithi wrote essays for The New York Times and Stanford Medicine reflecting on being a physician and a patient, the human experience of facing death, and the joy he found despite terminal illness. He died March 9, 2015 at the age of 37. Here is his obituary.]

• Why do you do what you do? … [Faith&Leadership, David L. Odom] Answering this question in an articulate way creates a hunger to know the answers to other strategic questions. Read on.

Spirit Resources ... way below.

Columns, Sermons, Reflections and other Spin

•• Your sermon? … If you have a sermon you might like uploaded to the newSpin blog and linked to from the newSpin newsletter, point bill.lewellis@gmail.com to it online.

• Debunking the myth of the job-stealing immigrant … [NYTimes, Adam Davidson, March 24] When I was growing up in the 1980s, I watched my grandfather — my dad’s stepdad — struggle with his own prejudice. He was a blue-collar World War II veteran who loved his family above all things and was constantly afraid for them. He carried a gun and, like many men of his generation, saw threats in people he didn’t understand: African-Americans, independent women, gays. By the time he died, 10 years ago, he had softened. He stopped using racist and homophobic slurs; he even hugged my gay cousin. But there was one view he wasn’t going to change. He had no time for Hispanics, he told us, and he wasn’t backing down. After all, this wasn’t a matter of bigotry. It was plain economics. These immigrants were stealing jobs from “Americans.” Read on.

• Pro-discrimination 'religious freedom' laws are dangerous … [WaPo Op-Ed, Tim Cook] There’s something very dangerous happening in states across the country.A wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states, would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors. Some, such as the bill enacted in Indiana last week that drew a national outcry and one passed in Arkansas, say individuals can cite their personal religious beliefs to refuse service to a customer or resist a state nondiscrimination law. Read on.

• In Indiana, using religion as a cover for bigotry … [NYTimes Editorial]Here.

Evangelism/Stewardship/Worship/Church GrowthResources ... way below

In the Media• One cup of soup at time … [Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre] “Warming up NEPA, one cup of soup at a time,” a new initiative of episcopalRELIEFnepa, hopes to bring a sense of comfort and nourishment, in a free cup of hot homemade soup and companionship to the parking lot of the Episcopal Church of St. Clement & St. Peter on Hanover Street from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on April 11. A joint effort with the Trinity Episcopal Church of West Pittston, the totally mobile effort uses pop-up tents and portable tables to bring a bit of nourishment to where it is most needed. More than 50 people were served at its inaugural event, held on March 7 at the West Pittston site. Read on.

Rest in Peace• Dolores Caskey, 94 … writer, civic activist, and community leader, died March 24 at Moravian Village of Bethlehem. She was a tireless advocate and worker for the community, especially its disadvantaged … She lost her husband of 65 years, James, in 2012. The Caskeys were active congregants of Trinity Episcopal Church, and the Diocese of Bethlehem. They served as volunteers in Trinity's soup kitchen for over 20 years. Obituary here. Morning Call story here.

• Chuck Bednarik, 89 … [Phila Inq] the immovable, irascible son of a Bethlehem steelworker whose Hall of Fame football career was more notable for lasts than firsts, died March 21 in a Bucks County assisted-living facility following a brief illness. Read on. Obituary here.

• Lyle Schaller, 91 … [Christianity Today] Preeminent church consultant. No one may have advised more churches in the 20th century. Because he was born April 19, 1923, and reached retirement age in the last century, he is best known to America’s senior church leaders. Schaller outlived many of those whom he most influenced, dying on March 18, 2015. Read on. Obituary here.

Ecumenism, Interfaith, Pluralism – or Not• Going Clear – Scientology on HBO … [RawStory]On Sunday (March 29), HBO will air Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, a two-hour documentary by Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney based on a 2013 book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lawrence Wright. The national airing of the film revives questions about this most controversial, American-born religion. This edition of RELIGION | LINK provides resources for reporters to tackle a number of issues about the film, Scientology and New Religious Movements. Read on.

• Five grimly hilarious moments in Scientology's history … [Yahoo]Here.

• A little respect for Dr. Foster … [NYTimes Op-Ed, Nicholas Kristof] Evangelical Christians are one of the few groups liberals mock openly. Here's why that is wrongheaded. Read on.

• Resources … way below.

Evangelical Lutheran Church NEPA Synod website ... Here. ELCA website ... Here. ELCA News Service ... Here. ELCA's blogs may be found here. See especially "Web and Multimedia Development."Spirit Spinning ... for those who hunger and thirst for a deeper connection with God ...Here.

Moravian ChurchMoravian Church in North Americawebsite. Moravian Church Northern Provincewebsite. Moravian Theological Seminarywebsite.

Roman Catholic• Allentown Diocese gives $95,000 in poverty relief grants… [The Morning Call] The Diocese of Allentown has allocated $95,000 in Poverty Relief Fund grants to 15 programs and agencies, according to a news release. The money is from a collection taken up in the 94 parishes of the diocese in the third week of November. Applications for grants came from 18 agencies or programs and totaled more than $173,000, much more money than was collected. Read on.

• Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac … If you haven't stumbled upon this site, you might like it. Sunday's (March 22) included biosketches of Billy Collins, Louis L'Amour, Stephen Sondheim, James Patterson and a lovely poem by Margaret Atwood. I especially enjoyed the biosketch of Stephen Sondheim.

• Moses wanted California … [RNS, Mark Silk] Once upon a time, God asked Moses what country he wanted for his people. Moses wanted California, but being a stammerer, he only managed to say: “Ca…Ca…Ca…” Replied God: “You want Canaan, you’ll get Canaan!” It’s an old joke, but after enduring the Israeli election on spring break in Yosemite and the Bay Area (Point Reyes to Palo Alto, the Golden Gate to the Berkeley Hills), I do wish Moses hadn’t had that speech impediment. On the other hand, unless it rains during next year’s rainy season, California is going to look like Canaan pretty soon. Speaking of climate change (which I can, not being employed by the State of Florida), I spent part of the time reading The Book of Strange NewThings, British author Michel Faber’s remarkable new novel about an evangelical pastor’s mission to the inhabitants of a far-away planet at a time when natural disasters are bringing life as we know it on Earth to an end. Read on. Review by Jeffrey Weiss of the Dallas Morning News.

• Sure, Jesus was Son of God. But how was his fiction … [Forward, Jerome A. Chanes]Amy-Jill Levine Makes Contribution to Jewish New Testament Lit … It would seem easy to dismiss Levine’s latest work, “Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi,” as a slight book. Big mistake. That Jesus was the consummate storyteller is commonplace. But Levine cogently makes the case that the parables are not mere mayselech, tales and yarns, but that each parable had an “original provocation” or challenge for its original first-century listeners. Levine notes that the authors of the Gospels were among the first interpreters of the parables, and in the process “domesticated” them — a practice that, to the dismay of many, is continued by all too many preachers from the pulpit — diminishing the “original provocation” of the stories. Read on.

• Can Indie filmmakers save religious cinema? … [The Atlantic, Alissa Wilkinson] As “faith-based” films flooded into theaters last year, writers fellover themselvesto declare 2014 the “year of the Bible movie.” It seemed as if the market—meaning Christian audiences to many—had finally come into its own, a decade after the runaway box-office success of The Passion of the Christ. Read on.

•• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told about your congregation, it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.

VariaSpin• 19th-Century Church in Northeast Philadelphia to be demolished … [CBS Phila, Molly Daly] The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has announced its plan to demolish the city’s oldest Polish Roman Catholic church. The archdiocese acted last fall to de-consecrate St. Laurentius, a church that dates back to the late 19th century. Read on. [Bill] I wonder whether that plan would have gone down under a former Polish archbishop, Cardinal Krol?• The right way to end a meeting … [Harvard Business Review, March 11]Here.

• Catholic priest, ex-EWTN TV host, fathered chid; he's now accused of abuse … [Alabama Media Group] The minor he is charged with sexually abusing is his own son, now six years old. David Lawrence Stone, 54, formerly known as Father Frances Mary Stone, was host of the TV program "Life on the Rock" on Eternal Word Television Network. Read on.

• Should you use this word? It decreases your effectiveness … [PsychologyToday] Want a quick upgrade to the way you communicate with yourself, with work colleagues, and in your love relationships? In Psychology Today, Susan Heitler says you should do this: Delete the word should from your vocabulary. Or, as I've heard Rick Cluett say, "Don't should on me."

SpiritSpin• The Book of Common Prayer ... every edition from 1549 to 1979. Here.• Prayers and Thanksgivings from the BCP ... Here.• The (Online) Book of Common Prayer ... Here.• The Daily Office ... can be read online in Rite I, Rite II or the New Zealand Prayer Book versions. At Mission St. Clare.• The Daily Office ... from the Diocese of Indianapolis. Here.• Daily Prayer ... a resource of Forward Movement. Here.• Holy Women, Holy Men ... Download Holy Women, Holy Men as a .pdf file.• Speaking to the Soul ... An Episcopal Café blog. Sermons, reflections, multimedia meditations and excerpts from books on spirituality. Here.• The Imitation of Christ ... Availablefree online.

• Lenten Resources • Daily lenten meditations by Anne Kitch… Subscribe here. You will not regret following Anne. Here's an excerpt from Feb. 27: I usually find hand-washing a chore for which I have neither the time nor the patience. But as I scrub and rinse the sweater several times, I discover a soothing rhythm to it and a gentle attentiveness. And I imagine God, hand-washing me with similar care. I am overwhelmed then by a vision of God washing each of us by hand. Patiently. Lovingly. And in God’s hands, no one is ruined beyond repair, and there is no stain that cannot be removed.• Mediator Allentown outreach missioner Twila Smith … has an absolutely wonderful listing of resources at her Pinterest site. No matter how challenging you might think it is to sign up to see Twila's resources, I think you will find that it's worth it. Her latest listing is Lenten Resources. • A seven-part Episcopal Public Policy Network series, "Engaging Poverty at Home and Around the World." began Ash Wednesday, available here. • United Thank Offeringprovides a daily scripture passage from the Daily Office through Facebook and Twitter (#unitedthankoffering). • Trinity Bethlehem's "Lights in the Darkness" blog project… [Amy Spagna] will be back for a repeat engagement, beginning on Shrove Tuesday, Feb. 17. This year's reflections will be centered around themes of reconciliation and forgiveness, and will feature work by Trinity parishioners and staff, and several guest writers. The blog's home on the Web is lentenlightsbethpa.blogspot.com. If you would like to receive these daily reflections by email, please send Amy a note at amy@trinitybeth.org, and she'll be happy to add you to the list. • Lent with ESC(Episcopal Service Corps) • Practicing Lent,from the Diocese of West Texas • #LivingLentis a new social media, photo-based reflection designed to draw participants into the Lenten story by creating 'living pictures' and modern interpretations of biblical art, from the Diocese of Texas. • A rich resource list, from the Diocese of Olympia. • Short, daily videosover the five weeks of Lent, from the Brothers of SSJE.

Evangelism/Stewardship/Church Growth• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.

Religious Freedom Recap, our weekly look back at the top stories and developments on religious liberty around the world. - See more at: http://brianpellot.religionnews.com/2013/09/16/burkini-compromise-pope-hearts-atheists-dozen-muslim-march-religious-freedom-recap-sept-9-sept-16/#sthash.nA6J6Y1Y.dpuf

******************The newSpin newsletter is uploaded to the newSpin blog and posted on Bakery and on other diocesan lists of some 3,000 addresses. Many recipients forward it to others. It comes, of course, with some spin from the editor. The views expressed, implied or inferred in items or links contained in the newsletter or the blog do not represent the official view of the Diocese of Bethlehem unless expressed by or forwarded from the Bishop, the Standing Committee or the Archdeacon as an official communication. Comments are welcome on Bakery (if you are subscribed to that interactive list) and at the newSpin blog. At the newSpin blog, click in the right hand column on the title of the current newsletter. Then, make your comment below.

March 30, 2015

[Doctor Malloy, professor at General Theological Seminary NYC and author of Celebrating the Eucharist was rector of Grace Allentown in 2009 when he wrote this.]

[A year ago, Bill Lewellis asked me to write something about the Triduum: the three days that celebrate the passing of Jesus from life to death to glory, and our share in the pattern of his life, often called “the Paschal Mystery.” It was only one year ago, but the world was different then, so the three-day feast was different, too, than the one we celebrate this year. This year Bill asked to re-publish the piece I wrote. What follows is essentially that. But last year’s words without commentary would not be enough.]

The Triduum we will celebrate in 2009 –– the three-day feast often called “the Paschal Mystery” that celebrates the passing of Jesus from life to death to glory and our share in the pattern of his life –– will not be like the Triduum we celebrated in 2008.

It was only one year ago, but the world was different then, so the three-day feast was different, too, than the one we celebrate this year.

It will not be the same, because we are not the same. The story most people tell about their lives and their world this year is not what we told just one year ago. Yet, the wonder of how God-in-Christ passed from eternity into time, and from life into death, and from death into glory, has not changed. We have changed, our world has changed, but God remains.

The Triduum celebrates a dynamic that God revealed in Jesus. It is, at once, the dynamic of divine life and the dynamic of human life. Jesus, in his divinity, reveals that God forsakes everything for us mortals; and, when all is finished, God remains glorious. The human Jesus reveals that when mortals like us forsake everything for the sake of God, we share in God’s glory. The mystery is the same, whether we consider Jesus as the divine mortal or as the human God.

All of this goes entirely against the grain and defies logic. Death and life are opposites; they cannot be intertwined. Yet, the story of Jesus is that they are. Anyone who would be Jesus’ disciple must claim it as true, even if it seems impossible.

This year more than last, our world is facing the death of so much. What can we, as disciples of the crucified yet risen Lord, say in the face of such loss? How can we declare to the world that, as the Lord has shown us, death can be a passage into glorious life?

We Christians must speak courage in the face of fear, hope in the face of despair. The story we tell across the Three Day is as true today as it was when first it unfolded in Jesus’ life. What looks like death can be life. Jesus is the proof.

Here are bits and pieces of what I wrote last year about the Triduum for Diocesan Life.

Addicts speak of “hitting bottom” as if it were the greatest gift they had ever received. Recognizing their own powerlessness, they simultaneously admit their need for a savior. They call it their “Higher Power.”

What allows addicts to rejoice in the day they hit bottom is that only there did they finally find God. In the midst of the suffering is the salvation. In the midst of the loss is the gain.

In the sixth century, Venantius Fortunatus wrote a poem in honor of a supposed relic of the true cross. It has come into the Hymnal 1982 as The Royal Banners Forward Go. What Fortunatus captures so beautifully and so clearly is that, in the passing of Jesus from life through death into glory, grace was never absent. Never had God deserted the Son; rather, even in what seemed like tragedy, God’s saving hand was already at work. So the cross, rather than being ugly and shameful, an unfortunate part of the story better left behind, is instead a thing of beauty and honor. Already on the cross, Jesus’ glory had begun.

O tree of beauty, tree most fair,Ordained those holy limbs to bearGone is thy shame, each crimsoned boughProclaims the king of glory now.

Some people think it odd, if not a bit macabre, that we Christians dangle crosses around our necks and hang them on our walls and mount them above our altars. They liken it to using miniature electric chairs as jewelry or art. What Christians see in the cross, however, is not the destruction of a life but its fulfillment; not defeat but triumph.

Fulfilled is all that David toldIn true prophetic song of old:How God the nations’ king should be,For God is reigning from the tree.

The cross is not an electric chair. It is a throne.

As he gave himself to his disciples as fragile Bread and Wine; as he made himself their servant, stooping even to the task of washing their feet; as he knowingly and willingly allowed his betrayer to be free even if it meant his own death; as he stood clear and proud and strong before Pilate, Jesus was living the glorified life. Jesus is the glory of God made flesh; at no time in his earthly life was it so clear as during those last days.

Every year, the church celebrates those days in a feast called “The Paschal Triduum.” It stretches from sundown on Maundy Thursday (which, according to the way the liturgical day is calculated, is actually the beginning of Good Friday) to sundown on Easter Sunday. The three 24-hour days are, in fact, one liturgical day. They celebrate, not three distinct events, but one complex dynamic. They celebrate that the self-offering of God in Christ reveals God’s glory. The resurrection is but one facet of how the Divine Majesty is revealed.

What these liturgies (or, rather, this protracted liturgy) celebrate is a current reality, not something long past. That is because what we celebrate in those days is not just what happened to Jesus long ago or even who Jesus once was. It is what happens still, and who he is still. Always and forever, it is of God’s very nature to give the Divine Self for the sake of what God has made.

To do these liturgies so that they are experienced as one continuous event requires skill and effort. To celebrate them with a vigor and ritual fullness that can reveal the Mystery they contain demands deep understanding, focus, time, and a great deal of work. It is worth it. It is worth it because, to understand what this three-day-long day celebrates is to understand and to actually experience the God revealed in Christ.

The 2009 Triduum will not be like the 2008 Triduum. The world has changed. We have changed. In the face of so much fear and the death of so much certainty, how can we celebrate that God’s life cannot be conquered no matter what else dies? How can we enact the wonderful and ancient rites of the Prayer Book so that we emerge from them knowing in our very bones that in the midst of the dying is the rising? How can we be strengthened to gracefully let go of what will be snatched from our hands, whether we are willing to let it go or not? Think of the economy. So much is slipping through our fingers. This is a hard, concrete fact. It is not a theological concept, and people cannot escape just how real it is. Can we proclaim the Divine pattern to them: from life to death to glory?

“Even at the grave,” the burial rite says, “we make our song: Alleluia.” The Triduum 2009 brings us face-to-face with an essential question. Do we really sing Alleluia in the face of death, and mean it? Do we dare sing it at the edge of the grave and the foot of the cross? Are we certain –– with the fragile certainty of faith –– that in the dying is the rising and in the cross is the crown, and are we willing to stake our lives on it?

Only if we are that daring is the Triduum worth celebrating. With such daring, we can live in the midst of death, confident that it conceals, thinly at best, new and glorious life, and that, by Baptism, the life is already ours.

###

The Paschal Triduum: one three-day-long event celebrating one saving dynamic ... even in the midst of death there is life. [An excerpt from Celebrating the Eucharist by Patrick Malloy, pp. 72-73, Church Publishing, 2007] Find it here.

March 29, 2015

My email signature line has long been:Be attentive … Be intelligent … Be reasonable … Be responsible … Be in Love …

For well over a decade, perhaps over two … or three. Those who have received email from me may may have noticed. :-)

When I taught Bishop's School, I attempted to turn that into a prayer with which we began each class.

Let us pray: Guide us, gracious God … May we be …Attentive to our experience, to the voices and hearts of those around us;Intelligent in our interpretation of that to which we have been attentive;Reasonable in our judgments about what we have understood;Responsible in our decisions about how we will act on our judgments; And always open to inner conversion, to transformation in your truth and your love.

March 23, 2015

With the emergence of the mid-month Leadership News and the end-of-month Diocesan Enewsletter … this newSpin newsletter may move to twice a month rather than weekly publication. We are still working through that, but it seems likely. newSpin has alrealdy discontinued its DioBethSpin and ParishSpin sections. That news will appear in the new newsletters and on the DioBeth website.

• Indicates new item. •• Indicates repeat.

TopSpin• DioBeth's new monthly enewsletters(1) The first issue of our new Diocesan Enewsletter was published at the end of February. Find it here … and sign up here to receive future issues by email as soon as they are published. Actually, you may sign up also at the bottom of the newsletter itself. The content of the monthly newsletter will be posted also on the DioBeth website and linked to on Facebook and in our Twitter stream. (2) The first issue of Leardership News was published during the past week. It will continue to be published in the middle of each month, and will consist primarily of information that clergy, lay leaders and church staff need to do their work. This isn't to say that all are not invited to sign up for it. Find the mid-March issue here. To receive it monthly by email, sign up at the bottom of Leadership News, at "Join our Mailing List."

• Largest Presbyterian denomination gives final approval for same-sex marriage … [RNS via Reuters] The Presbyterian Church (USA) on Tuesday (March 17) approved a change in the wording of its constitution to include same-sex marriage, a move which threatens to further splinter one of the largest U.S. mainline Protestant denominations. A majority of the 171 regional “presbyteries,” or local leadership bodies of the church, have now voted to change the wording of the constitution to define marriage as a commitment “between two people, traditionally a man and a woman.” That change in the Louisville, Ky.-based church’s constitution was recommended by its General Assembly last year and required a simple majority of 86 votes, achieved on Tuesday, the church said. The new wording, which replaces “between a woman and a man,” takes effect June 21. Read on.

• After the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) formally approved same-sex marriage … [Pew Research] an updated Fact Tank post looks at where Christian churches and other religious groups stand on the issue.

• For Christian millennials, gay marriage debate produces new views on morality … [Christian Science Monitor] The vote this week by the Presbyterian Church USA to redefine marriage points to a deeper debate for millennials about interpretations of biblical morality. Read on.

• Dousing homeless at church gets San Francisco archdiocese in hot water … [San Francisco Chronicle, Kevin Fagan, March 18] First the water rained down, and then the condemnation rained down — and on Wednesday, San Francisco’s embarrassed Roman Catholic Archdiocese said it would tear out sprinklers that have been dousing homeless people sleeping in the doorways of its premier church in the city. The sprinklers have been regularly dousing people camping overnight in four spacious side doorways of St. Mary’s Cathedral for about two years, leaving soggy piles of blankets, clothing, hypodermic needles and other trash nearly every morning. Preventing that type of mess, soggy or not, was the reason the archdiocese installed the sprinklers, church officials said. Then came Wednesday. A report by KCBS radio quoting homeless people complaining about the nightly dousings led to the archdiocese being swamped by media requests for explanations — and by 2 p.m. the sprinklers had been torn out. The city Building Department issued a violation order saying the sprinklers had been improperly installed without a permit, but that should be dismissed as soon as the church shows proof of the removal, an agency spokesman said. Read on.

• No sprinklers required: How one church kept homeless people off church steps … [RNS, Linda Kaufman] Every Tuesday at 7 a.m., a small group of us met with our homeless neighbors for breakfast and discussion. We talked about what it would take to find permanent housing and kept track of commitments. Six weeks in, when it was time for everyone to be moved to someplace else, we decided that we would continue the community we had formed beyond the March 1 deadline. At our meeting the first week of March, some miracles occurred. Read on.

• Vatican backs military force to stop ISIS 'genocide' … [Crux, John Allen] In an unusually blunt endorsement of military action, the Vatican’s top diplomat at the United Nations in Geneva has called for a coordinated international force to stop the “so-called Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq from further assaults on Christians and other minority groups. “We have to stop this kind of genocide,” said Italian Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s representative in Geneva. “Otherwise we’ll be crying out in the future about why we didn’t so something, why we allowed such a terrible tragedy to happen.” Tomasi said that any anti-ISIS coalition has to include the Muslim states of the Middle East, and can’t simply be a “Western approach.” He also said it should unfold under the aegis of the United Nations. Read on.

Episcopal/Anglican• Central Pennsylvania diocese elects woman … [ENS, diocesan staff of CPA] The Rev. Canon Audrey Cady Scanlan was elected on March 14 as 11th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, pending the required consents from a majority of bishops with jurisdiction and standing committees of the Episcopal Church. Scanlan, 56, canon for mission collaboration and congregational life in the Diocese of Connecticut, was elected on the second ballot out of a field of three nominees. Read on.

Resources … way below.

SpiritSpin• An Analogy for Grace … [Written by Jim Naughton, September 25, 2014. Lovely. Insightful. Theologically astute. Not to be missed.] We take as a theological given that we don't deserve grace, but what we need to reckon with is the fact that we don't recognize it. It wears the wrong clothes and shows up in the wrong places at the wrong times. It comes in the guise of people we generally avoid. As a result, we fail to see it for what it is. We take the word of others--experts, advance teams--for what grace is and what it isn't, when we must pay attention and when we can walk on by. Perhaps we don't trust ourselves to recognize and respond to grace when we see it or hear it. Or perhaps life is constructed in such a way that grace needs references and a spot on our calendar before we can give it its due.Henry James once urged readers: "Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost." This is among the few spiritual disciplines that still make sense to me. Read on.

• Before I Go: A Stanford neurosurgeon’s parting wisdom about life and time … [WaPo, via Stanford Medicine magazine, by Paul Kalanithi, Stanford University neurosurgeon] In residency, there’s a saying: The days are long, but the years are short … The years did, as promised, fly by. Six years passed in a flash, but then, heading into chief residency, I developed a classic constellation of symptoms — weight loss, fevers, night sweats, unremitting back pain, cough — indicating a diagnosis quickly confirmed: metastatic lung cancer. The gears of time ground down. While able to limp through the end of residency on treatment, I relapsed, underwent chemo and endured a prolonged hospitalization. Read on. Also, at Episcopal Café. [Paul Kalanithi wrote essays for The New York Times and Stanford Medicine reflecting on being a physician and a patient, the human experience of facing death, and the joy he found despite terminal illness. He died March 9, 2015 at the age of 37. Here is his obituary.]

• Mary in Context: Pictures at an Exhibition … [National Museum of Women in the Arts] All organizations are grappling with how to present information online. The National Museum of Women in the Arts has done a noteworthy job of digitally rendering one of its current exhibitions in Washington. The show is about the representations of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in European, Islamic and Asian cultures. The breadth of the museum’s scholarship is apparent in the “tour” — a series of videos and high-resolution photos of the paintings and sculptures in a slide-show format. Here. [h/t Damon Darlin at NYT's What We're Reading]

• On ‘disastrous’ homilies that drive Catholics away, often to evangelical churches … [RNS, From a recent interview with Pope Francis] “I do not know if they (bad sermons) are the majority — but they do not reach the heart. They are lessons in theology and are abstract or long, and this is why I devoted so much space to them in Evangelii Gaudium (his landmark statement from 2013). Typically evangelicals are close to the people; they aim for the heart and prepare their homilies really well. I think we have to have a conversion in this. The Protestant concept of the homily is much stronger than the Catholic. It’s almost a sacrament.” More here.

Spirit Resources ... way below.

Columns, Sermons, Reflections and other Spin•• Your sermon? … If you have a sermon you might like uploaded to the newSpin blog and linked to from the newSpin newsletter, point bill.lewellis@gmail.com to it online.

• Danforth's eulogy for Missouri's late auditor is a powerful call to repair politics … [WaPo, Reid Wilson, March 3] Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich (R) was laid to rest Tuesday morning (March 3), less than a week after committing suicide at his St. Louis area home. Schweich had been a candidate for governor, but the pressure of an insidious, anti-Semitic whisper campaign and a harshly negative radio advertisement apparently pushed him over the edge. In a eulogy Tuesday, former senator John Danforth (R-Mo.), Schweich’s political mentor, said his protege was so troubled by criticism that Danforth initially discouraged him from seeking elected office. Danforth, an Episcopal priest, said Schweich’s death should become a catalyst for changing the negativity that has crept into American politics. Read on.

• The case for free-range parenting … [[NYTimes Opinion, Clemens Wergin] Recently, researchers at the University of Virginia conducted interviews with 100 parents. “Nearly all respondents remember childhoods of nearly unlimited freedom, when they could ride bicycles and wander through woods, streets, parks, unmonitored by their parents,” writes Jeffrey Dill, one of the researchers. But when it comes to their own children, the same respondents were terrified by the idea of giving them only a fraction of the freedom they once enjoyed. Many cited fear of abduction, even though crime rates have declined significantly. The most recent in-depth study found that, in 1999, only 115 children nationwide were victims of a “stereotypical kidnapping” by a stranger; the overwhelming majority were abducted by a family member. That same year, 2,931 children under 15 died as passengers in car accidents. Driving children around is statistically more dangerous than letting them roam freely. Read on.

• For a rich country, America is unusually religious and optimistic … [WaPo, Wonkblog, George Gao, March 12] The differences between America and other nations have long been a subject of fascination and study for social scientists, dating back to Alexis de Tocqueville, the early 19th century French political thinker who described the United States as “exceptional.” Nearly 200 years later, Americans’ emphasis on individualism and work ethic stands out in surveys of people around the world. When Pew Research Center surveyed people in 44 countries last spring, 57 percent of Americans disagreed with the statement “success in life is pretty much determined by forces outside our control,” a higher percentage than most other nations and far above the global median of 38 percent. Americans also stand out for their religiosity and optimism, especially when compared with other relatively wealthy countries. Read on.

• The Dark Side of the Subjunctive … [Phuc Tran] The quagmire of the subjunctive. At NPR's TED Radio Hour and TED Talks.

Evangelism/Stewardship/Worship/Church Growth

Rest in Peace• Frances Skan … I would like to thank everyone who offered prayers for my daughter" wrote James Decatur, Sr. "She went home Thursday 3/5/15 at 12:18am. We will miss her until we catch up with her."

TaleSpin• Seven questions to test your St. Paddy's know-how … [RNS] Did you think St. Patrick’s Day is all about green beer and leprechauns? In fact, the Christian feast day has been celebrated since the 17th century in honor of Ireland’s beloved patron saint. Take our quiz to find out more about the trailblazing, fifth-century priest.

Ecumenism, Interfaith, Pluralism – or Not • ‘Prosperity gospel’ pastor pulls online appeal for congregation to buy him a new $65 million jet… [RawStory] Faced with a huge social media backlash after appealing to his parishioners to buy him a brand new $65 million Gulfstream jet, the head of the Creflo Dollar Ministries has taken his request for donations offline. Dollar has a personal net worth of $27 million, 200 times more than the $29,640 average annual income in College Park, Georgia where he holds court. Read on.

• The Blasphemy of ISIS: A 7-Point Pro-Guide to Islam(ism) … [Religion Dispatches, Haroon Moghul, March 16] Graeme Wood’s controversial article on ISIS in this month’s Atlantic elicited a flurry of responses, from hearty “amens” to clever and erudite rebuttals (along with some more colorful takes on the matter). Since much of the subsequent discussion hinged on interpretations and misinterpretations of a number of terms related to Islam, RD senior correspondent Haroon Moghul assembled the following primer.Please note that it isn’t intended as a comprehensive guide either to Islam or even to the individual terms, but should be read in the context of recent debates. Read on.

• 7.5 million Americans lost their religion since 2012 … [RNS] A new survey shows in stark relief that what some are calling the Great Decline of religion in America continues. Read on.

• From 121 to 17,000-plus: Charlotte's Elevation Church congregation keeps growing … [Charlotte Observer] In nine years, Charlottes Elevation Church has grown from the 121 worshippers at its first service to the more than 17,000 who now show up every weekend at its 13 locations. The evangelical megachurch is about to open a University City campus that cost nearly $5 million to turn into worship space. It’s just the latest piece of an ambitious expansion that involves spending big, building big and even carrying the Elevation franchise to another city, another state and another country. Read on.

• Can one pastor bridge deep divides between evangelicals and mainline Protestants? … [WaPo, Sarah Pulliam Bailey, March 19] As mainline Protestant churches struggle, the Rev. Amy Butler of Riverside Church NYC is looking for ways to infuse some of what has made evangelicalism thrive into a more progressive form of Protestantism, two forms of Christianity usually seen at odds with one another. Read on.

• Event for victims of John Howard Yoder … [South Bend Tribune, Margaret Fosmoe] Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart will host an event March 22 to acknowledge institutional responsibility for sexual exploitation against women by the late John Howard Yoder, who was a prominent Mennonite theologian, and to help bring peace and closure to his victims. Yoder, who died in 1997 at age 70, was a longtime faculty member and president at a Mennonite seminary in Elkhart and also taught for 30 years at the University of Notre Dame. Read on.

Evangelical Lutheran ChurchNEPA Synod website ... Here. ELCA website ... Here.ELCA News Service ... Here. ELCA's blogs may be found here. See especially "Web and Multimedia Development."Spirit Spinning ... for those who hunger and thirst for a deeper connection with God ... Here.

The Vatican• Five Francis forecasts for Year Three … [Crux, John Allen, March 13] Today is the beginning of Year Three of the Pope Francis era, as the pontiff completes two full years in office since his surprise election in March 2013. Although the Vatican says there are no festivities planned aside from giving most employees the day off, that hasn’t stopped the rest of the world from taking stock of the spiritual tsunami this maverick pope has become. f there’s a “Francis revolution” underway, it appears to be more about the pastoral application of teaching rather than revisions to it. As the dust settles, the Catholic Church is still saying “no” to women priests, gay marriage, and contraception, even if it’s trending softer in terms of how those positions are communicated and enforced. It’s an agenda that plays well with moderates, but leaves many liberals disappointed. John Allen's forecasts: 1. A liberal backlash. 2. A rock star in America. 3. The Dark Green Pope. 4. A Humanae Vitae moment that won’t be. 5. The Pope of the Persecuted. Read on.

•• Vatican Insider …is a project run by the daily newspaper La Stampa. The website provides comprehensive information on the Vatican, the activities of the Pope and the Holy See, the Catholic Church’s presence on the international scene and on religious issues. It is an independent multimedia tool, produced in three languages: Italian, English and Spanish. It is distributed through its website as well as other digital platforms and the main social networks on the Internet. It boasts a staff of qualified Vatican correspondents, flanked by some of the most prestigious international names in the field of religious and Vatican-based information. It provides free news and in-depth reports seven days a week and offers its partners exclusive journalistic services, inquiries, interviews and information packages.

••Two years in, Francis faces headwinds in reforming the Vatican. Here's how he can prevail … [RNS, David Gibson] One reason the cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis two years ago on Friday (March 13) was a brief but powerful speech the Argentine cardinal made shortly before the conclave in which he denounced the “theological narcissism” of the Roman Catholic Church. The church, Francis declared, was “sick” because it was closed in on itself and needed to go out “to the peripheries” and risk all by accompanying the shunned and marginalized. In these past two years, Francis’ efforts to do just that have captivated the public’s imagination and inspired a wide swath of the Catholic spectrum with visions of a newly resurgent faith unshackled from years of scandal and stagnation. But there was another big reason the cardinals voted for Bergoglio: They thought the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires was the one man with the administrative chops to finally rein in the dysfunctional papal bureaucracy, known as the Roman Curia, that was often at the root of the Catholic crisis. Today, however, the reforms that Francis launched with vigor and near-evangelistic zeal are showing signs of a sophomore slump, bogged down in ponderous consultations and more infighting. Read on.

Media/Films/DVD/TV/Books/Music/Tech• The hyperreal Kimmy Schmidt … [Religion Dispatches, Sarah Morice-Brubaker, March 12] We aren’t meant to dwell on the theological particulars of the bunker-bound doomsday cult from which Kimmy Schmidt and three other women were rescued in the new Netflix series The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. (In fact, good luck if you decide to try. There’s something about Jesus’ crazy stepbrother Terry, and Gosh’s son Jeepers, and the apocalypse happening because people are dumb. Apparently Durnsville, Indiana doesn’t have any systematic theologians.) That’s okay, though, because the cult’s claims don’t really need to be very persuasive. After all, they don’t rely on persuasion to attract adherents. The Spooky Church of the Scary Apocalypse – of which Rev. Wayne Gary Wayne is the CFO – manages to attract exactly one voluntary member. The rest are kidnapped and held in a bunker by Rev. Wayne, who… well, in order to avoid giving anything away, let’s just say he’s working an angle. Read on.

• When bad things happen … [MacPowerUsers] Mostly for Apple users. What to do when the worst things happen to your tech. Malware, compromised passwords, stolen devices and more and what you can do to prepare now to be ready when disaster strikes. Read on.

• Telling the good news, in the media ... [Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson] If the media isn’t telling the stories you want told about your congregation, it is possible (we say very gently) that those stories aren’t interesting or significant enough to warrant coverage. Or, it is possible that you are not presenting them to the media in a way that catches their attention. Or perhaps you have not presented stories to the media at all. It isn’t easy to get your congregation, diocese, conference, or other sort of Christian organization into the newspaper or in online media outlets unless something has gone significantly wrong. It is even harder to get it on television or the radio. But it is possible if you absorb these 10 simple tips. Read on.

VariaSpin • Ten stunning images show the hidden beauty in π … [WaPo, Ana Swanson] March 14, 2015 – 3/14/15 -- marked an extremely nerdy holiday, the official celebration of π, the magical, mathematical and infinite constant that is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter … Pi looks random: Mathematicians have computed pi out to 10 trillion digits and seen no evident pattern. But what really vexes mathematicians is that no one can definitely say that pi is random -- no one has figured out the mathematical proof. And in another sense, pi is anything but random: After all, the number embodies the order of a perfect circle. The tension between order and randomness is one of the most tantalizing aspects of pi. Read on.

• The right way to end a meeting … [Harvard Business Review, March 11]Here.

• How to program your mind to stop buying crap you don't need … [LifeHacker, Patrick Allan] We all buy things from time to time that we don't really need. It's okay to appeal to your wants every once in a while, as long as you're in control. If you struggle with clutter, impulse buys, and buyer's remorse, here's how to put your mind in the right place before you even set foot in a store. Read on

. • Ditch the country music cliché: God's not our first influence … [RNS, Cathy Lynn Grossman] When you talk about yourself, what markers of personal identity come first? If it’s not “God, family and country” in that order, well, there go your credentials for Nashville stardom. The real order is family first (62 percent) followed by “being an American” (52 percent). “Religious faith” falls steeply to third place (38 percent) – if it’s mentioned at all, according to a survey released Thursday (March 19) by The Barna Group. Read on.

ResourceSpin: See next issue of newSpin

****************** The newSpin newsletter is uploaded to the newSpin blog and posted on Bakery and on other diocesan lists of some 3,000 addresses. Many recipients forward it to others. It comes, of course, with some spin from the editor. The views expressed, implied or inferred in items or links contained in the newsletter or the blog do not represent the official view of the Diocese of Bethlehem unless expressed by or forwarded from the Bishop, the Standing Committee or the Archdeacon as an official communication. Comments are welcome on Bakery (if you are subscribed to that interactive list) and at the newSpin blog. At the newSpin blog, click in the right hand column on the title of the current newsletter. Then, make your comment below. Bill Lewellis, Diocese of Bethlehem, retired Communication Minister/Editor (1986-2010), Canon Theologian (1998-) Blog , Email (c)610-393-1833 Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable. Be responsible. Be in Love. And, if necessary, change. [Bernard Lonergan]

March 16, 2015

Joshua Bell, the renowned violinist who once posed as a typical subway busker for a Washington Post magazine article, is back underground again.

The question posed by the original 2007 story was: “If a world-famous musician and his $3 million fiddle brought some of history’s most beautiful music to a rush-hour crowd [in a DC metro station], would people stop and listen? ‘In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?,’ the story wondered.”

The answer was, “Not really.” Twenty-seven people stopped. One thousand and seventy walked on by.

Now, seven years later, Bell is going to give it another try. The Post writes, “At 12:30 p.m. on Sept. 30, Bell will perform for 30 minutes in the main hall of Union Station. He’ll trade the baseball hat [he wore in 2007] for a crisp black shirt, hidden cameras for media coverage and busy commuters for what he hopes will be a large and engaged audience there to hear a program of Mendelssohn and Bach.”

I am sure the crowds will be bigger and more appreciative, but it seems unlikely the music will be more beautiful, and this has me thinking about grace. We take as a theological given that we don’t deserve grace, but what we need to reckon with is the fact that we don’t recognize it. It wears the wrong clothes and shows up in the wrong places at the wrong times. It comes in the guise of people we generally avoid.

As a result, we fail to see it for what it is. We take the word of others–experts, advance teams–for what grace is and what it isn’t, when we must pay attention and when we can walk on by. Perhaps we don’t trust ourselves to recognize and respond to grace when we see it or hear it. Or perhaps life is constructed in such a way that grace needs references and a spot on our calendar before we can give it its due.

Henry James once urged readers: “Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost.” This is among the few spiritual disciplines that still make sense to me.

[Jim Naughton is a partner in Canticle Communications, specializing in work for church agencies, organizations,parishes and advocacy groups. A former reporter for The New York Times and The Washington Post, Jim is founder and editor of Episcopal Café]